THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


A  HISTORY 
OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


BY 

HERBERT   PAUL 


IN  FIVE  VOLUMES 
VOL.  I 


MACMILLAN    AND   CO.,   LIMITED 

NEW    YORK  :    THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 
1904 

All  rig/its  reserved 


Copyright  in  tht  United  States  of  America 


!     A 


CONTENTS 


\ 

^ 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         1 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT  .  22 


CHAPTER   II 

PALMERSTON'S  FOREIGN  POLICY  . 


.  CHAPTER   III 

*«'  . 
OQ        THE  IRISH  FAMINE    . 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE     .... 

CHAPTER   V 

REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION         .         .         .         .         .         .87 

CHAPTER   VI 

ENGLISH  CHARTISTS  AND  IRISH  REBELS        .         .         .         .110 

CHAPTER   VII 

THE  ERA  OK  RETRENCHMENT    .  125 


vi     HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 
CHAPTER   VIII 

PAGE 

THE  EXPANSION  OF  ENGLAND      .  .137 

CHAPTER  IX 

THEOLOGY  AND  LITERATURE      .         .  148 

CHAPTER  X 

LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH     .         .         .         .         .         .158 

CHAPTER   XI 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COLONIES          .         .         .         .181 

CHAPTER   XII 

ENGLAND  AND  THE  CHURCH  OF  ROME    .    .    .    .190 

CHAPTER   XIII 

THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  MID  CENTURY         .         .         .         21 6 

CHAPTER  XIV 

PALMERSTON'S  FALL   ........     226 

CHAPTER   XV 

THE  FIRST  GOVERNMENT  OF  LORD  DERBY  .         .         .     244 

CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  COALITION  276 


CONTENTS  vii 

CHAPTER   XVII 


INDEX 


PAGE 


THE  EASTERN  QUKSTION     ......  £99 

CHAPTER   XVIII 

THE  FIRST  PART  OF  THE  RUSSIAN  WAR      ....     328 

CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  SECOND  PART  OF  THE  RUSSIAN  WAR  ....     379 


.     425 


ERRATA 

Page  369,  line    5,  for  three  read  eight. 
,     370,    „    14, /or  five  read  teu. 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  dramatic  close  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  official 
career  marks  a  turning-point  in  English  history. 
It  broke  up  political  parties,  and  disorganised 
public  life.  Toryism  disappeared  for  a  generation, 
and  for  some  years  the  Whigs  held  the  field  as  the 
only  possible  Government.  No  Minister  ever  had 
a  more  glorious  fall.  Sir  Robert  Peel  left  office 
(power  he  could  not  leave)  with  an  alacrity  equal 
to  Falstaff's.  But  he  did  not  sink.  He  fell  to 
rise,  and  that  immediately,  upon  the  crest  of  the 
wave.  He  has  himself  described  the  final  scene  in 
a  letter  to  his  intimate  friend,  Lord  Hardinge,  then 
Governor  -  General  of  India,  which  has  become 
justly  famous.  "The  moment,"  he  wrote  on  the 
4th  of  July  1846,  "the  moment  when  success  was 
ensured,  and  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  two 
drowsy  masters  in  Chancery  mumble  out  at  the 
table  of  the  House  of  Commons  that  the  Lords  had 
passed  the  Corn  and  Customs  Bills,  I  was  satisfied." 
He  might  well  be  satisfied.  He  had  restored  the 
finances  of  his  country,  which,  when  he  became 
Prime  Minister  in  1841,  were  in  great  and  grievous 
peril.  By  the  simple  expedient  of  Free  Trade  he 
had  given  the  people  bread,  putting,  as  Mr.  Bright 
said  long  afterwards,  the  Lord's  Prayer  into  an 
Act  of  Parliament.  He  thus  saved  England  from 
the  danger  of  revolution,  then  no  vague  or  imagin- 
ary peril,  for  it  broke  a  few  months  later  upon 
VOL.  IS  B 


2     HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

Europe.  But  he  did  more.  He  laid  deep  and 
strong  the  foundations  of  a  commercial  system  which 
has  outgrown  the  ideas  and  prospects  of  1846  as 
much  as  they  had  surpassed  the  dreams  of  the  Tudors. 
The  greater  part  of  the  vexatious  tariff  which  pro- 
voked the  pungent  satire  of  Sydney  Smith  had 
been  swept  away,  and  indirect  taxation  was  limited 
to  a  few  articles  which  contributed  a  large  revenue 
without  unnecessary  disturbance  of  business. 

The  great  Minister  left  the  Treasury  at  a  time 
of  profound  peace.  He  had  little  taste  for  military 
glory.  His  foreign  policy,  though  firm  and  re- 
solute, was  essentially  pacific.  While  cultivating 
friendly  relations  with  the  European  Powers,  he 
had  the  sagacity  to  foresee  the  future  importance 
of  the  United  States,  and  he  attached  especial  value 
to  their  goodwill.  In  this  respect  also  he  was 
singularly  fortunate,  as  he  told  Lord  Hardinge 
in  the  next  sentences  to  those  already  quoted. 
"Two  hours  after  this  intelligence  was  brought," 
he  goes  on,  "  we  were  ejected  from  power ;  and  by 
another  coincidence  as  marvellous,  on  the  day  in 
which  I  had  to  announce  in  the  House  of  Commons 
the  dissolution  of  the  Government,  the  news  arrived 
that  we  had  settled  the  Oregon  question,  and  that 
our  proposals  had  been  accepted  by  the  United 
States  without  the  alteration  of  a  word."  This 
disputed  boundary,  which  highly  concerned  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  and  Canada,  had  brought 
the  two  countries  to  the  verge  of  war,  and  its 
settlement  is  known  to  have  been  furthered  by  the 
free  admission  of  American  maize. 

When  Peel  retired  to  Drayton  Manor  in  the 
beautiful  summer  of  1846  he  was  not  merely  the 
first  man  in  England,  but  the  foremost  statesman 
in  Europe.  If,  said  Mr.  Charles  Villiers  at  the  close 
of  his  long  life,  there  had  been  between  1846  and 
1850  a  meeting  of  the  people  of  England,  Peel 


INTRODUCTION  3 

would  have  been  put  in  the  chair.  He  was  held 
in  great  esteem  throughout  the  Continent.  Among 
his  regular  correspondents  was  that  sagacious 
monarch,  the  first  king  of  the  Belgians,  and  no 
English  writer  has  more  correctly  estimated  the 
English  Minister's  career  than  M.  Guizot,  the 
most  distinguished  Frenchman  of  his  age.  Peel 
was  overthrown  by  a  half  sinister,  half  accidental 
combination  of  Whigs,  Radicals,  and  Protectionists, 
who  voted  together  against  his  stringent  Coercion 
Bill  for  Ireland.  Of  these  the  Radicals  only  were 
sincere.  The  Protectionists  cared  no  more  for  Ireland 
than  they  cared  for  Nova  Zembla,  and  the  Whigs 
were  quite  as  ready  as  the  Tories  to  propose  special 
legislation  against  Irish  crime.  By  the  Protection- 
ists Peel  was  hated  and  abused  with  a  virulence 
which  is  painful  to  contemplate  even  at  this  distance 
of  time.  A  single  instance  will  suffice.  It  shall 
not  be  taken  from  the  speech  of  a  professional 
politician,  nor  from  the  language  of  buffoons  like 
Lord  Alvanley,  who  said  that  "  Peel  ought  not  to 
die  a  natural  death,"  but  from  the  familiar  corre- 
spondence of  a  scholar  and  a  man  of  letters,  the 
son-in-law  and  biographer  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  In 
replying  to  an  Address  from  Elbing,  a  seaport  of 
Russia,  Sir  Robert  had  given  a  lucid  exposition 
of  what  appeared  to  him  the  fundamental  principles 
of  Free  Trade.  Writing  to  John  Wilson  Croker, 
a  fitting  recipient  of  such  a  communication,  Mr. 
Lockhart,  at  that  time  editor  of  the  Quarterly 
Review,  expresses  himself  as  follows  :  "  I  seriously 
believe  that  he  [Peel]  was  for  his  last  year  of  power 
not  in  full  possession  of  his  faculties.  [The  italics 
are  Lockh art's.]  When  he  cut  his  foot,  Brodie 
found  it  bleeding  buckets  full,  yet  he  instantly 
cupped  him  on  the  temples,  for  he  at  once  inferred 
that  the  accident  had  resulted  from  great  disorder 
of  the  whole  system,  nerves  included.  This  I  know 


4     HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

to  be  the  case ;  and  my  own  doctor  (Ferguson), 
who  occasionally  visits  Lady  Peel  and  the  girls,  has 
at  this  moment  a  strong  impression  that  Sir  Robert 
is  in  a  dangerous  state.  The  Elbing  letter  sent 
furieusement  lapoplexie"  The  resemblance  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Grenada's  sermon  is  in  Lockhart's 
letter,  and  not  in  Peel's. 

Taken  at  its  worst,  what  was  Peel's  offence  ? 
That  he  had  betrayed  the  cause  of  monopoly,  and 
sacrificed  a  party  to  the  nation.  A  personal  motive 
could  not  even  be  suggested.  Lockhart  himself 
admits  that  Peel's  retirement  was  genuine,  and 
that  he  had  no  thought  of  return.  When  he 
resigned,  he  asked  of  Queen  Victoria  as  a  personal 
favour  that  she  would  never  again  call  him  to  her 
counsels.  Death  in  harness  had  no  terrors  for  him. 
What  he  could  not  forget  was  that  Lord  Castle- 
reagh  died  a  maniac,  and  Lord  Liverpool  an  idiot. 
The  contemplation  of  such  a  fate  did  appal  him, 
and  Macaulay  told  him  what,  strange  as  it  may 
appear  now,  was  then  true,  that  no  man  had  led 
the  House  of  Commons  successfully  after  he  was 
sixty.  He  possessed  an  ample  fortune ;  he  had 
collected  a  gallery  of  fine  pictures  ;  he  was  fond  of 
country  life ;  and  he  was  particularly  happy  in  his 
domestic  circumstances.  He  was  free  from  all 
temptation  to  consult  anything  except  the  good  of 
the  people.  Although  he  chose  to  remain  member 
for  Tamworth,  he  was  earnestly  pressed  to  become 
member  for  the  city  of  London,  and  he  might  have 
represented  almost  any  large  town  in  England. 
Yet,  surrounded  as  he  was  by  a  brilliant  band  of 
pupils  and  disciples,  he  had,  in  the  ordinary  sense 
of  the  term,  no  party.  There  was  scarcely  a 
Peelite  who  was  not  a  Privy  Councillor,  and  most 
of  them  had  been  Secretaries  of  State.  The  closest, 
if  not  the  staunchest  of  them  all,  was  a  converted 
Whig,  Sir  James  Graham. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

A  false  point  has  been  made  in  defence  of  Peel, 
who  needs  none.  It  is  said  that  he  would  not 
himself  have  carried  Free  Trade  if  the  Whigs  had 
been  able  to  do  so,  and  that  he  resigned  to  give 
them  the  opportunity.  That  is  historically  untrue. 
If  his  whole  Cabinet  had  agreed  with  him,  he  would 
not  have  resigned  in  December  1845.  It  was  Lord 
Stanley's  resignation  which  forced  his  hand,  and 
drove  him  to  a  course  he  would  not  otherwise  have 
taken.  Lord  Stanley  was  accompanied  by  the 
Duke  of  Buccleugh,  who  was  afterwards  induced 
to  return.  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  though  he 
would  not,  as  he  put  it,  desert  his  Sovereign,  was 
a  thorough  Protectionist  at  heart.  Until  Mr. 
Gladstone  succeeded  Lord  Stanley,  Peel  had  no 
hearty  supporters  in  the  Cabinet  except  Sidney 
Herbert,  Sir  James  Graham,  and  Lord  Aberdeen. 
That  he  finally  overcame  all  obstacles,  and  carried 
Free  Trade  through  a  Protectionist  Parliament,  was 
another  example  of  the  same  magnificent  courage 
which  did  not  shrink  when  the  spirit  of  others 
failed.  It  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  the 
Whigs  could  have  passed  the  Bill  through  the 
House  of  Lords.  Peel,  assisted  by  the  Duke,  was 
the  one  man  who  could  do  it,  and  this  from  the 
first  he  probably  knew. 

The  effects  of  Free  Trade  were  multiplied  and 
enhanced  by  improvements  in  the  means  of 
locomotion.  Modern  England  may  be  said  to  date 
from  the  substitution  of  the  railway  for  the  stage- 
coach. From  the  days  of  Chedorlaomer  to  the 
days  of  Stephenson  there  was  very  little  advance 
in  the  speed  of  travelling.  One  simple  piece  of 
statistics,  taken  from  Sir  Stafford  North  cote's  well- 
known  handbook,  the  most  readable  of  all  financial 
essays,1  will  show  at  a  glance  the  enormous  progress 

1  Twenty  Tears  of  Financial  Policy,  1842-1861.  Saunders,  Otley, 
and  Co.  1862.  Perhaps  not  quite  so  well  known  as  it  deserves  to  be. 


6     HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

in  the  means  of  communication  during  1844,  1845, 
and  1846.  Up  to  1844  the  annual  expenditure  on 
railways  had  not  exceeded  five  millions  sterling. 
In  the  next  three  years  it  was  a  hundred  and 
eighty-five  millions.  The  "railway  mania,"  as  it 
was  called,  led  to  consequences,  some  of  them 
disastrous,  which  must  hereafter  be  described.  The 
permanent  effect  of  the  iron  horse  upon  the  comfort 
and  habits  of  society  has  been  far  greater  than  any 
legislation.  Combined  with  the  electric  telegraph, 
a  later,  but  not  a  much  later,  discovery,  it  called 
a  new  world  into  existence,  or  at  all  events  revolu- 
tionised the  old.  Watt  and  Wheatstone  annihilated 
distance,  and  almost  destroyed  time. 

The  disappearance  of  duelling,  in  some  degree 
under  the  influence  of  Prince  Albert,  was  also  a 
mark  of  the  transition  from  the  old  world  to  the 
new.  By  the  law  of  England,  duelling  was  always 
a  crime,  and  to  kill  a  man  in  a  duel,  however 
fairly  fought,  was  always  murder,  even  though  the 
challenger  were  the  victim.  But  public  opinion 
was  stronger  than  the  law,  and  juries  would  not 
convict  for  an  act  of  which  they  did  not  altogether 
disapprove.  Duelling  was  virtually  confined  to 
the  most  conspicuous  class  of  society,  and  was 
regarded  as  the  distinctive  mark  of  a  gentleman. 
It  was  especially  prevalent  among  public  men. 
The  Duke  of  Wellington  fought  a  duel  with  Lord 
Winchilsea  while  he  was  Prime  Minister,  and 
received  a  characteristic  remonstrance  from  Jeremy 
Bentham,  beginning  "  Misguided  man."  Peel  and 
Disraeli,  who  had  not  much  else  in  common,  both 
challenged  O'Connell.  But  O'Connell  was  a  devout 
Catholic,  and  after  killing  D'Esterre,  a  member  of 
the  old  exclusive  Dublin  Corporation,  he  never 
could  be  persuaded  to  fight  again.  Lord  Althorp 
was  all  but  committed  to  the  custody  of  the 
serjeant-at-arms,  because  he  would  not  promise  to 


INTRODUCTION  7 

abstain  from  challenging  Sheil.  For  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  especially  the  Speaker,  always 
made  at  least  a  show  of  preventing  armed  conflicts 
between  members.  The  first  member  of  Parlia- 
ment to  raise  as  a  question  of  privilege  what  would 
have  formerly  been  considered  ground  for  a  hostile 
meeting  was  Joseph  Hume,  and  he  was  warmly 
thanked  for  his  moral  courage  by  a  political 
opponent,  the  best  practical  Christian  then  in 
public  life,  Lord  Ashley. 

So  early  as  1834,  however,  Mr.  Pease,  the  first 
of  that  name  who  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
being  asked  by  an  Irishman  named  O'Dwyer  for 
"  an  explanation,  his  card,  and  address,"  replied 
that  "he  gave  no  explanations  except  on  his  legs 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  had  no  card,  and  no 
address."1  By  the  time  at  which  this  History 
opens,  duelling  in  England  had  practically  ceased. 

The  least  satisfactory  feature  of  English  life  in 
1846  was  the  condition  of  the  labouring  classes. 
Politically  they  were  dumb,  for  they  had  no 
Parliamentary  votes.  Socially  they  were  de- 
pressed, though  their  lot  had  been  considerably 
improved  by  an  increased  demand  for  labour,  and 
by  the  removal  of  taxes  in  Peel's  great  Budget  of 
1842.  That  was  the  year  in  which  the  misery  of 
the  English  proletariat  reached  its  lowest  depth. 
In  1842  "  one  person  in  every  eleven  was  a  pauper, 
and  one  person  in  every  five  hundred  was  com- 
mitted for  trial."2  Then  the  tide  began  to  turn.  The 
opposition  to  machinery  had  not  been  altogether 
unreasonable.  Its  first  introduction,  with  the 
employment  of  steam  in  factories,  had  dislocated 
the  market,  had  upset  the  manufacturing  system, 
had  thrown  men  out  of  work.  Time,  a  quite 
considerable  time,  was  required  for  the  full  effect 

1  "  Greville  Memoirs,"  17th  Feb.  1834. 

2  Walpole's  History  of  England,  v.  503. 


8      HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

of  machinery  to  be  seen  in  cheapening  goods,  and 
by  cheapness  stimulating  the  demand  which  it 
supplied.  Then  came  the  multiplication  of  rail- 
ways, providing  wages  for  thousands  of  navvies 
(inland  navigators),  and  the  blessing  of  cheap 
bread.  At  the  same  time  emigration  began  to 
relieve  the  pressure  upon  subsistence,  and,  happily 
for  England,  the  Irish  famine  partially  forestalled 
the  operation  of  the  Act  which  established  Free 
Trade.  The  welfare  of  the  working  classes  was 
not  promoted  either  by  the  low  duties  on  spirits, 
or  by  the  high  duties  on  tea.  A  pound  of  tea 
paid  in  1846  more  than  two  shillings  to  the  revenue, 
and  a  gallon  of  whisky  paid  less  than  three. 
Those  who  could  not  afford  tea  could  afford  gin, 
and  the  result  was  a  deplorable  amount  of  drunken- 
ness among  men  who  could  easily  have  been 
tempted  into  moderation  by  a  wiser  tariff.  The 
window-tax,  the  worst  remaining  heritage  of  the 
French  war,  darkened  the  homes  of  the  poor,  and 
the  discovery  of  petroleum  had  not  yet  supplied 
them  with  the  blessing,  accompanied,  it  is  true, 
with  the  danger,  of  cheap  light.  Elementary 
education,  the  light  of  the  mind,  was  scandalously 
deficient.  The  amount  voted  for  it  by  the  House  of 
Commons  was  insignificant.  Many  of  the  parochial 
clergy  took  a  zealous  interest  in  the  parish  schools, 
though  they  were  under  no  obligation  to  provide 
secular  teaching.  The  National  Society,  and  the 
British  and  Foreign  Schools  Society  worked  to  the 
utmost  limit  of  their  funds  in  setting  up  normal  or 
model  schools.  But  the  business  was  far  too  large, 
difficult,  and  important  for  any  authority  lower 
than  the  State  itself  to  undertake  with  any  hope 
of  success.  To  a  really  national  system  of  educa- 
tion there  were  still  apparently  insurmountable 
obstacles.  On  the  one  hand  were  Tories  who  held 
as  a  principle  that  the  instruction  of  the  young  at 


INTRODUCTION  9 

elementary  schools  should  be,  as  it  was  at  public 
schools  and  universities,  entirely  in  the  hands  of 
the  Established  Church.  On  the  other  hand  were 
Radicals  and  Nonconformists  who  held  in  those 
days  that  education  should  be  left  to  private 
enterprise,  and  that,  if  the  State  interfered,  it  would 
be  to  make  proselytes  for  the  Church.  With  cheap 
gin  and  bad  education  went  low  wages,  especially 
in  the  hitherto  protected  interest  of  agriculture. 
At  this  time,  however,  two  causes  combined  to 
reduce  the  pressure  of  population  upon  subsistence 
which  placed  the  labourer  at  the  mercy  of  his 
employer.  The  Irish  famine,  which  began  with 
the  failure  of  the  potato  crop  in  the  autumn  of 
1845,  gradually  lessened  the  number  of  Irish 
labourers  who  annually  flocked  to  England  for  the 
wheat  harvest.  The  stream  of  emigration  to 
Canada  and  the  United  States,  which  assumed 
serious  magnitude  in  1846,  and  continued  to 
increase  for  several  years,  enabled  many  families 
who  would  have  come  upon  the  rates  at  home  to 
make  a  comfortable  livelihood  in  the  new  world. 
There  also  they  were  safe  from  the  risk,  not  merely 
of  overcrowding,  but  of  the  bad  drainage,  or  no 
drainage,  which  disgraced  alike  the  towns  and 
villages  of  Early  Victorian  England.  Before  the 
Health  of  Towns  Act  (1848),  there  was  practically 
no  sanitary  legislation  at  all,  and  the  dead  were 
freely  buried  in  the  middle  of  the  largest  cities. 
The  ravages  of  typhus  and  cholera  were  directly 
due  to  this  scandalous  and  fatal  neglect.  But 
fortunately  with  the  collapse  of  Chartism,  soon  to 
be  recorded,  there  coincided  the  growth  and 
progress  of  those  Trade  Unions  which,  despite 
many  blunders  and  some  crimes,  have  done  more 
for  the  working  classes  of  this  country  than  all  the 
Parliaments  that  ever  assembled  at  Westminster. 
The  early  unions  which  alone  existed  in  1846 


10   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

were  cautious  and  even  timid  in  their  action. 
The  law  of  conspiracy  made  by  judges,  and  there- 
fore uncertain  in  its  operation,  inspired  them  with 
a  vague  but  reasonable  dread,  and  they  carefully 
discouraged  strikes.  The  Miners'  Association  of 
Great  Britain  had  been  founded  in  1841.  The 
Potters'  Union  and  the  Cotton-Spinners'  Associa- 
tion date  from  1843 ;  the  National  Typographi- 
cal Society  and  the  United  Flint  Gunmakers' 
Society  from  1844.1  When  the  National  Association 
of  United  Trades  was  formed,  the  stone-masons, 
the  printers,  and  the  cotton -spinners  refused  to 
join  it.  When  the  builders  of  Manchester  struck 
work  in  1846,  the  National  Association  refused  to 
support  them,  and  the  strike  failed.2  So  small  was 
the  mutual  confidence  of  the  various  trades  at  the 
outset  of  the  movement  destined  to  re-organise 
labour,  and  prepare  it  for  competing  on  equal  terms 
with  the  forces  of  capital.  The  Rochdale  Society 
of  Equitable  Pioneers,  started  in  1844  by  forty 
labourers,  with  a  capital  of  twenty-eight  pounds, 
was  the  first  and  not  the  least  successful  of  the 
Co-operative  Societies  which  have  since  played  a 
double  part  as  shops  and  savings  banks  in  the 
industrial  life  of  England.  By  the  upper  and 
middle  classes  of  society  in  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century  working  men  were  regarded 
with  the  sort  of  vague  alarm  inspired  by  what  is  at 
once  vast  and  unknown.  Their  intense  Conser- 
vatism was  not  suspected,  and  it  was  assumed  by 
both  parties  that  their  votes  would  always  be  given 
on  the  Radical  side. 

"History,"  says  Lord  Acton  in  his  Introduc- 
tory Note  to  Mr.  Gooch's  Annals  of  Politics  and 
Culture,  "History  embraces  ideas  as  much  as 
events,  and  derives  its  best  virtue  from  regions 

1  History  of  Trade  Unionism,  by  Beatrice  and  Sidney  Webb,  p.  168. 
2  Ibid.  168-175. 


INTRODUCTION  11 

beyond  the  sphere  of  State."  Even  in  1846  England 
was  not  entirely  absorbed  with  the  abolition  of 
the  corn  laws.  It  was  an  age,  as  Mr.  Disraeli  per- 
haps alone  among  public  men  discerned,  profoundly 
imaginative,  poetical,  and  religious.  Wordsworth, 
who  deserves  far  better  than  those  on  whom  Dr. 
Johnson  conferred  it  the  name  of  a  metaphysical 
poet,  was  still  Laureate.  The  fount  was  mute, 
the  channel  dry.  But  he  had  long  outlived 
detraction ;  he  was  acknowledged  to  be  without  a 
rival,  and  in  spite  of  the  ecclesiastical  sonnets  he 
had  taught  by  precept  and  example  that  spiritual 
things  must  be  spiritually  discerned.  The  width 
as  well  as  the  depth  of  his  influence  is  illustrated 
by  the  enthusiastic  and  thoroughly  appreciative 
devotion  of  a  mind  so  different  from  his  own  as 
John  Stuart  Mill's.  The  great  poet  of  the  next 
age,  Alfred  Tennyson,  was  then  thirty-seven.  A 
pension  from  the  Civil  List,  conferred  by  Sir 
Robert  Peel  at  the  instance  of  Monckton  Milnes, 
afterwards  Lord  Houghton,  saved  Tennyson  from 
professional  drudgery,  or  from  the  alternative  of 
colonial  exile.  His  early  volume  of  poems  had 
established  his  reputation  with  all  competent  and 
unprejudiced  judges.  But  it  was  long  before  he 
became  popular,  and  the  stupidity  of  some  criti- 
cisms, even  in  respectable  periodicals,  upon  In 
Memoriam,  is  almost  beyond  belief.  In  1846  was 
celebrated  "the  marriage  of  the  poets,"  Robert 
Browning  and  Elizabeth  Barrett.  For  a  long 
time  it  was  the  fashion  to  say  that  the  wife  wrote 
better  poetry  than  the  husband.  Posterity  has 
reversed  this  judgment  in  favour  of  Paracelsus, 
of  Men  and  Women,  and  of  Dramatis  Personce. 
But  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese  have  the  ring 
of  true  passion  in  them,  the  passion  of  the  soul. 
Robert  Browning  never  enjoyed,  nor  perhaps  de- 
served, the  same  popularity  as  Tennyson.  If  poets 


12   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

of  the  few  must  be  separated  from  poets  of  the 
many,  he  is  a  poet  of  the  few.  A  prosaic  era  could 
not  have  produced  him.  His  mind  was  constantly 
fermenting  with  ideas.  He  did  not  stand  aloof 
from  the  world,  like  Tennyson,  but  mixed  in  it 
freely,  and  with  enjoyment.  In  politics  he  was 
an  advanced  Liberal,  and  the  "Englishman  in 
Italy  "  expresses  his  opinion  of  the  corn  laws.  He 
was  a  man  whose  thoughts  sometimes  struggled 
unsuccessfully  with  language.  But  the  thought 
is  always  there,  and  is  almost  always  worth  the 
trouble  of  finding  out. 

Charles  Dickens,  the  greatest  of  popular  humour- 
ists, was  in  1846  at  the  height  of  his  fame.  In 
natural  genius  no  novelist  has  surpassed,  and  few 
indeed  have  equalled  him.  He  owed  little  or 
nothing  to  education,  except  that  form  of  educa- 
tion which  consists  in  acquiring  early  a  practical 
knowledge  of  the  world.  The  fun  of  Pickwick  is 
quite  original.  There  was  nothing  like  it  before, 
and  subsequent  imitations  of  it  have  always  failed. 
In  the  year  of  Free  Trade  Dickens  became  the  first 
editor  of  the  Daily  News.  But  he  soon  had 
enough  of  ephemeral  journalism,  and  went  back  to 
his  proper  business  of  writing  books.  He  was  a 
sentimental  Radical,  and  would  probably,  if  he 
had  studied  economic  science,  have  become  a 
Socialist.  But  he  never  studied  anything,  except 
mankind,  and  his  bold  attacks  upon  established 
abuses,  such  as  imprisonment  for  debt,  were  the 
result  of  humanity  enlightened  by  common  sense. 
Although  he  loved  to  storm  the  strongholds  of 
Philistinism,  he  was  something  of  a  Philistine 
himself.  That  may  perhaps  be  the  reason  why 
his  sentiment  is  so  much  less  effective  than  his 
humour. 

By  the  year  1846  the  power  of  philosophical 
Radicalism  was  on  the  wane.  The  influence  of 


INTRODUCTION  13 

Bentham,  the  largest,  save  Rousseau's,  ever  exer- 
cised upon  practical  politics  by  a  man  of  study, 
had  spent  itself  in  the  reform  of  the  criminal  law 
and  the  removal  of  the  burdens  on  trade.  But  a 
new  force  was  beginning  to  work  on  the  Benthamite 
side.  John  Stuart  Mill  cannot  exactly  be  called 
an  original  thinker.  Most  of  his  ideas  were  derived 
from  Bentham,  from  Ricardo,  and  from  his  own 
father.  But  he  gave  them  freshness,  popularity, 
and  persuasive  power.  The  Utilitarian  school,  to 
which  he  belonged,  seemed  dry,  hard,  and  unsympa- 
thetic until  the  younger  Mill  kindled  it  with  the 
fire  of  his  eloquence  and  enthusiasm.  No  man  of 
his  generation  had  a  higher  spirit,  purer  aims,  or  a 
wider  sympathy  with  the  various  aspirations  of 
mankind.  His  System  of  Logic,  by  which  he  was 
then  chiefly  known,  is  the  least  characteristic  of 
his  works,  and  his  Essays  on  Some  Unsettled 
Questions  of  Political  Economy,  the  germ  of  his 
famous  treatise  on  that  science,  were  known  only 
to  students.  His  official  position  at  the  India 
House  withdrew  him  till  1858  from  the  ordinary 
course  of  public  life,  which  he  ultimately  adopted 
with  reluctance.  But  as  editor  of  the  Westminster 
Review,  the  recognised  organ  of  the  Radical  philo- 
sophers, who  were  represented  in  Parliament  by 
Sir  William  Molesworth,  he  kept  the  lamp  burning 
in  the  Benthamite  shrine.  The  historian  of  the 
party  was  Harriet  Martineau,  whose  narrative  of 
the  Thirty  Years  Peace,  destined  to  last  for 
thirty-eight,  is  written  almost  exclusively  from 
the  Radical  point  of  view.  With  the  possible 
exception  of  Mrs.  Somerville,  Miss  Martineau  was 
the  ablest  woman  of  her  time,  and  her  grasp  of 
economic  science  was  as  comprehensive  as  John 
Mill's.  To  the  same  school  of  thought  and  politics 
belonged  George  Grote,  the  illustrious  historian  of 
ancient  Greece.  Mr.  Grote's  Parliamentary  career, 


14    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

which  was  not  undistinguished,  had  closed  in  1841, 
and  he  then  devoted  himself  strenuously  to  the 
task  of  his  life.  No  other  scholar  has  been  so  suc- 
cessful in  the  illustration  of  classical  times  by  the 
light  of  modern  development  and  analogy.  He 
was  an  Aristotelian,  as  well  as  a  Utilitarian. 
When  he  came  to  deal  with  Plato,  and  entered 
the  spiritual  region,  he  moved  helplessly  about  in 
worlds  not  realised.  Like  all  historians  worth 
their  salt,  Mr.  Grote  has  been  accused  of  partisan- 
ship. He  took  the  side  of  Athens  and  democracy, 
as  Mitford  had  taken  the  side  of  Sparta  and  aris- 
tocracy. But  Thirl  wall,  whose  judicial  fairness 
has  never  been  impugned,  declared  that  Mitford's 
honesty  could  only  be  saved  at  the  expense  of  his 
intellect,  and  he  himself  does  not  substantially 
differ  from  the  conclusions  of  Grote.  Grote's 
History.,  of  which  the  first  two  volumes  appeared 
in  ,1846,  marks  an  epoch  of  intellectual  progress, 
because  it  exhibits  clearly  and  on  a  large  scale  the 
essential  unity  of  ancient  and  modern  life. 

No  estimate  of  this  period  could  be  complete 
which  ignored  Thomas  Carlyle.  Standing  as  far 
apart  as  Mill  himself  from  orthodox  Christianity, 
Carlyle  was  a  determined  enemy  of  materialism. 
He  first  appeared  in  English  literature  as  the 
student  and  interpreter  of  Goethe.  But  the  dis- 
ciple was  very  unlike  the  master.  "  Of  all  the 
educated  men  I  have  ever  known,"  said  Sir  Henry 
Taylor,  "  Carlyle  has  the  least  capacity  for  reason- 
ing." He  had  certainly  none  of  Goethe's  rational 
philosophy,  none  of  his  Olympian  calm.  Although 
his  taste  in  poetry  was  severely  circumscribed,  and 
he  could  see  nothing  in  Keats,  he  had  himself 
the  soul  of  a  poet  and  a  humourist.  He  was  an 
idealist,  a  hero- worshipper,  a  believer  in  force,  a 
railer  at  forms.  The  principal  institutions  of 
modern  England,  especially  those  centred  at 


INTRODUCTION  15 

Downing  Street  and  Westminster,  were  pro- 
foundly obnoxious  to  him.  Parliamentary  debates 
were  babble.  Government  by  Cabinet  was  red 
tape.  He  was  always  advertising  for  a  strong 
man.  He  would  have  liked  to  make  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  who  probably  never  heard  of  him, 
Dictator — an  office  which  the  Duke  would  certainly 
have  declined  with  even  more  than  his  accustomed 
emphasis.  Carlyle  had  all  the  inconsistencies  of 
genius.  The  man  he  professed  most  thoroughly 
to  despise  was  a  Parliamentary  statesman,  a  Sir 
Jabez  Windbag,  as  he  called  him ;  and  if  ever 
there  was  a  type  of  the  Parliamentary  statesman, 
it  was  Sir  Robert  Peel.  But  on  the  19th  of  June, 
1846  Carlyle  sent  Sir  Robert  a  copy  of  Cromwell 's 
Life  and  Letters,  with  a  most  admiring  letter  from 
himself.  Coming  from  the  author  of  Sartor 
Resartus,  and  Latter  Day  Pamphlets,  these  words 
are  remarkable  indeed.  "  By  and  by,  as  I  believe, 
all  England  will  say  what  already  many  a  one 
begins  to  feel,  that  whatever  were  the  spoken 
unveracities  in  Parliament — and  they  are  many  on 
all  hands,  lamentable  to  gods  and  men — here  has  a 
great  veracity  been  done  in  Parliament,  consider- 
ably our  greatest  for  many  years  past,  a  strenuous, 
courageous,  and  manful  thing,  to  which  all  of  us 
that  so  see  it  are  bound  to  give  our  loyal  recog- 
nition, and  such  furtherance  as  we  can."  Why 
Carlyle,  who  objected  so  vehemently  to  the  abolition 
of  slavery,  should  have  rejoiced  so  keenly  in  the 
establishment  of  Free  Trade  is  not  obvious.  Politi- 
cal economy  he  abhorred,  and  called  it  the  dismal 
science,  though  without  it  Protection  would  have 
been  immortal.  Cobden  and  Bright  he  would 
have  treated  much  as  Dr.  Johnson  would  have 
treated  Rousseau  and  Voltaire.  It  was  not  Peel 
the  economist,  but  Peel  the  strong  man  that  he 
welcomed.  The  party  of  physical  force  derived 


16   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

much  encouragement  from  the  writings  of  Carlyle. 
Their  great  enemy  was  the  great  Minister.  They 
were  vanquished  by  cheap  bread. 

If  there  was  one  thing  which  Carlyle  disdained 
more  than  practical  politics  (apart  from  literary 
copyright),  it  was  ecclesiastical  controversy.  The 
Oxford  Movement  he  regarded  as  a  fuss  about 
clothes,  and  he  pronounced  Dr.  Newman  not  to 
have  "  the  intellect  of  a  rabbit."  That  too  many 
books  have  been  written  about  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment it  would  be  the  last  extremity  of  paradox  to 
deny.  But  the  contempt  expressed  for  it  by 
superior  persons  has  not  been  justified  by  events, 
and  was  not  shared  by  Mr.  Disraeli,  who  saw  more 
of  the  game  than  most  lookers-on,  and  considered 
the  secession  of  Newman  in  1845  as  the  greatest 
blow  received  by  the  Church  of  England  in  his 
time.  With  it  ended  the  first  phase  of  the  move- 
ment. Newman  and  Ward,  "  Ideal "  Ward,  had 
now  gone.  Pusey,  Keble,  Manning,  and  Hope-Scott 
remained.  Two  of  the  Peelites,  Gladstone  and 
Sidney  Herbert,  were  closely  associated  with  them. 
But  as  a  rule  it  may  be  said,  in  spite  of  eminent 
exceptions,  that  Tractarianism  had  little  effect 
upon  the  laity.  It  was  clerical  in  its  origin,  clerical 
in  its  nature,  and  clerical  in  its  results.  It  found 
the  clergy  for  the  most  part  evangelical.  It  left 
them  for  the  most  part  sacerdotalist.  It  found 
them  mere  English  gentlemen.  It  left  them  theo- 
logians and  priests.  Human  nature  proved  too 
strong  for  the  principle  of  celibacy.  But  the  clergy, 
for  good  or  for  evil,  perhaps  for  both,  became  less 
like  laymen.  They  adopted  a  more  distinctive 
dress.  They  ceased,  as  a  rule,  to  hunt  and  shoot, 
to  dance  and  play  cards.  They  had  always  been 
alive  to  the  sin  of  schism.  They  now  became 
sensitive  to  the  vice  of  heresy.  Protestantism  was 
discovered  not  to  be  a  religion.  The  Church  of 


INTRODUCTION  17 

England  was  not  Protestant,  it  was  Anglo- Catholic. 
The  feasts  of  the  Church  were  more  carefully 
celebrated,  the  communion-table  became  an  altar, 
and  in  process  of  time,  though  not  till  long  after 
1846,  the  black  gown  disappeared  from  the  pulpit. 
Simultaneously  with  these  ceremonial  changes  the 
Oxford  Movement  produced  a  most  laudable  in- 
crease of  activity  among  parochial  clergymen.  The 
Church  of  England  was  no  longer  a  comfortable 
provision  for  the  second  son  of  the  squire.  The 
Bishops  felt  the  pressure  of  a  vigilant  criticism, 
and  did  their  best  to  raise  the  standard  of  the  cloth. 
The  clergy  had  not  begun  in  1846  to  feel  the  pinch 
of  poverty.  A  man  who  took  holy  orders  was  still 
reasonably  sure  of  a  comfortable  maintenance,  and 
holy  orders  were  still  taken  as  a  matter  of  course 
by  most  fellows  of  colleges,  and  masters  at  public 
schools.  These  nominal  clergymen  sometimes  be- 
came Canons,  Deans,  and  even  Bishops.  They 
still  edited  the  classics  from  the  dignified  leisure  of 
rural  parsonages.  But  they  were  the  exception. 
Upon  the  general  body  of  the  working  clergy  the 
Oxford  Movement  acted  as  a  powerful  stimulant 
to  professional  zeal. 

There  has  always  been  in  every  Church  a  broad, 
or  latitudinarian  school.  In  1846  the  chief  English 
representative  of  this  school  was  Connop  Thirlwall, 
Bishop  of  St.  David's,  whose  episcopal  charges 
may  to  this  day  be  read  as  serious  and  permanent 
contributions  to  the  history  of  human  thought. 
Of  Bishop  Thirlwall  it  might  be  said,  with  more 
truth  than  of  the  poet  Gray,  that  he  never  spoke 
out.  He  was  a  man  eminently  decorous,  dislik- 
ing needless  controversy,  though  a  consummately 
dexterous  controversialist.  A  more  commanding 
intellect  had  not  been  enlisted  in  the  service  of  the 
English  Church  since  the  death  of  Bishop  Butler. 
Thirlwall  had  all  Bishop  Butler's  contempt  for 

VOL.  i  c 


18    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

shallow  infidelity,  and  was  fearful  of  doing  anything 
to  encourage  it.  But  he  was  throughout  his  life  a 
promoter  of  Liberalism,  and  of  the  free  thought 
without  which  Liberalism  cannot  flourish.  In  his 
Cambridge  days,  as  a  tutor  of  Trinity,  he  had  sacri- 
ficed his  official  position  by  his  zealous  support  of 
the  Dissenters'  claim  that  they  might  be  admitted 
within  the  University.  A  retort  which  he  made 
on  that  occasion  deserves  to  be  celebrated,  not 
merely  for  its  exquisite  irony,  but  because  it 
contains  the  essence  of  Liberalism  in  religious 
matters.  One  of  his  Conservative  colleagues  had 
objected  that  the  presence  of  Nonconformists 
would  put  an  end  to  the  enforcement  of  church- 
going,  and  that  the  alternative  was  compulsory 
religion  or  no  religion  at  all.  "  I  confess,"  said 
Thirlwall,  "that  the  distinction  is  too  subtle  for 
my  mental  grasp."  Thirlwall's  History  of  Greece 
has  been  unjustly  obscured  by  Grote's.  Their 
merits  are  different,  but  one  is  quite  as  good  as 
the  other.  In  point  of  style  Thirlwall's  is  by  far 
the  better  of  the  two.  He  was  an  excellent  writer : 
lucid,  dignified,  impressive.  John  Mill,  who  be- 
longed in  early  life  to  the  same  debating  society  as 
Thirlwall,  pronounced  him  to  be  the  best  speaker 
he  had  ever  heard,  and  the  few  speeches  he  made 
in  the  House  of  Lords  were  all  of  the  very  highest 
order.  He  was  a  modern  linguist  as  well  as  a 
classical  scholar,  and  within  a  year  of  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  See  of  St.  David's  he  had  mastered 
the  Welsh  tongue.  Buried  as  he  was  in  a  remote 
diocese,  which  he  never  neglected,  he  enjoyed  the 
respect  and  esteem  of  educated  Europe  for  the 
profundity  of  his  learning  and  the  grasp  of  his 
mind.  He  avowed  himself  a  Broad  Churchman, 
and  was  not  ashamed  of  the  title.  The  opposite 
of  broad,  he  observed,  was  neither  high  nor  low, 
but  narrow.  The  first  Broad  Churchman,  he 


19 

added,  was  St.  Jerome,  and  he  argued  that  the 
party  had  never  lost  its  identity  since  the  fifth 
century  of  the  Christian  era.  In  1846  there  was 
no  Convocation,  or  at  least  it  was  not  allowed  to 
sit.  But  Thirlwall's  charges  were  read  by  laymen 
who  never  thought  of  reading  anybody  else's,  and 
he  connected  the  Church  with  the  cultivated  few. 
Research  into  the  origin  of  the  Gospels  was  at 
this  time  stimulated  by  the  writings  of  Baur,  the 
first  theologian  then  living  in  Germany,  and 
founder  of  the  modern  critical  school.  Thirl  wall 
was  the  one  English  bishop,  perhaps  the  one 
English  clergyman,  unless  Dr.  Martineau  is  to  be 
so  called,  familiar  with  these  speculations.  He 
maintained  a  natural  reserve.  But  he  was  in  full 
sympathy  with  that  liberal  handling  of  religious 
questions  which  was  anathema  to  the  leaders  of  the 
Oxford  Movement. 

Lord  Acton's  predecessor  in  the  Chair  of 
Modern  History  at  Cambridge,  Sir  John  Seeley, 
says,  in  his  Expansion  of  England,  that  the 
historian  is  only  concerned  with  man  as  a  citizen, 
as  belonging  to  a  State.  This  doctrine  is  the 
exact  opposite  of  Lord  Acton's,  and  every  historian 
must  choose  between  them.  I  pronounce  for 
Lord  Acton.  Thucydides,  says  Seeley,  tells  us  a 
great  deal  about  Cleon,  and  nothing  at  all  about 
Socrates,  though  he  must  have  known  that  Socrates 
was  an  infinitely  greater  man  than  Cleon.  The 
answer  is  that  Thucydides  wrote  a  history  not  of 
Athens,  but  of  the  Peloponnesian  War,  in  which 
he  was  himself  engaged.  He  discarded  every- 
thing not  relevant  to  his  subject,  and  his  digres- 
sions are  scarcely  wider  than  Kinglake's.  The 
illustration  is  therefore  immaterial,  and  would  be 
so  even  if  it  were  possible  for  a  sane  historian 
to  attempt  a  rivalry  with  Thucydides.  What 
Seeley  meant  was  that  history  should  be  purely 


20    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

political,  and  in  this  I  cannot  agree  with  him. 
Indeed,  he  himself,  with  doubtful  consistency, 
complains  that  historians  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury have  followed  too  closely  the  proceedings  of 
Parliament.  In  the  eighteenth  century  Parlia- 
ment reflected  much  less  adequately  than  it  does 
now,  or  than  it  did  fifty  years  ago,  the  life  and 
thought  of  the  nation.  But  even  now  there  are 
many  vital  elements  of  national  progress,  and  of 
national  decadence,  which  do  not  find  their  way  into 
Parliamentary  debates,  and  which  cannot  be  called 
political.  Modern  England  was  not  erected  by 
Act  of  Parliament.  Free  Trade  was  essential  to 
her  commercial  supremacy,  and  the  establishment 
of  Free  Trade  was  a  piece  of  practical  politics.  But 
Free  Trade  would  have  been  comparatively  use- 
less without  steam,  and  no  Parliament  ever  yet 
made  a  scientific  discovery.  Telegraphy,  especially 
submarine  telegraphy,  owes  more  to  a  single 
Scotsman,  William  Thomson,  Lord  Kelvin,  than 
to  all  the  Parliaments  of  the  world.  A  strictly 
political  history  would,  I  presume,  take  no  notice 
of  Tennyson  until  he  voted  for  county  franchise  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  and  would  ignore  Browning 
altogether.  Lord  Ellenborough l  laid  down  a  true 
principle  when  he  said  with  characteristic  irony 
that  "chronological  order  is  the  best."  There 
is  sting,  as  well  as  point,  in  Sterne's  remark  that 
he  will  now  bring  up  the  affairs  of  the  kitchen,  as 
Rapin  brings  up  the  affairs  of  the  Church.  The 
essence  of  history  is  narrative,  not  disquisition, 
and  narrative  must  be  continuous.  I  propose 
to  divide  this  book  into  periods,  not  into  subjects. 
Sequences,  as  David  Hume  says,  we  know.  Causes 
we  can  only  conjecture.  The  silent  working  of 
the  human  mind,  which  in  the  long  run  determines 
the  policy  of  nations,  and  their  fate,  can  only  be 

1  The  Chief  Justice. 


INTRODUCTION  21 

traced  in  its  outward  consequences.  But  these 
are  infinitely  various.  The  conservation  of  energy 
may  be  applied  to  the  moral  as  well  as  to  the 
material  sphere.  Literature,  science,  politics,  art, 
have  as  their  one  common  source  the  mind  of 
man,  and  it  is  paradoxical  to  maintain  that  they 
are  not  related  with  each  other.  The  poet,  like 
the  statesman,  is  the  creature  of  his  age,  as  well 
as  the  creator  of  his  work.  There  is  a  reason, 
though  we  may  not  know  it,  for  the  date  of  a 
theory,  as  there  is  for  the  date  of  a  Bill.  The  best 
clue  a  historian  can  furnish,  because  the  best  he 
can  follow,  is  the  simple  order  of  events.  1  do  not 
say  that  he  should  let  them  speak  for  themselves. 
He  must  be  ill  prepared  for  the  performance  of  his 
task  if  his  studies  have  not  suggested  to  him  some 
inferences  from  the  past  which  may  be  used  as 
guides  for  the  future.  If  he  be  the  mere  advocate 
of  a  party,  he  will  get  no  hearing  from  the  other 
side.  But  he  must  have  his  opinions,  like  other 
people,  and  it  is  not,  I  think,  his  duty,  even  if  it 
be  in  his  power,  to  conceal  them.  Perfect  im- 
partiality implies  omniscience,  and  is  not  human 
but  divine.  To  extenuate  nothing,  to  set  down 
nought  in  malice,  to  consider  always  the  actions 
of  men  from  their  own  point  of  view  before  passing 
judgment  upon  them,  and  not  to  expect  from 
fallible  mortals  a  fore-knowledge  of  things,  is  the 
elementary  duty  of  the  historian.  Above  all,  he 
must  not  lose  himself  in  the  satisfied  contemplation 
of  material  progress.  For  the  things  which  are 
seen  are  temporal,  the  things  which  are  not  seen 
are  eternal. 


CHAPTER   I 

THE   LAST    WHIG    GOVERNMENT 

1846.  LORD  JOHN  RUSSELL  succeeded  Sir  Robert  Peel  as 

Prime  Minister  on  the  29th  of  June  1846.     Peel 

could  fairly  and  constitutionally  havedissolvedParlia- 

ment  instead  of  resigning  office.     He  was  strongly 

peers        urged  to  do  so  by  Mr.  Cobden,  who  predicted  that 

resignation.         »  •>  v.  •       •*.  j     .1 

he  would  secure  a  triumphant  majority,  and  that 
his  bitterest  opponents  would  lose  their  seats.  It 
is  probable  that  Cobden  was  correct  in  his  antici- 
pations. But  the  Minister  declined  to  follow  the 
friendly  advice  of  his  former  antagonist  for  various 
reasons,  of  which  the  most  important  was  that  he 
would  not  make  the  subject  of  Coercion  for  Ireland 
the  matter  of  an  appeal  to  the  country.  The 
correspondence  between  the  two  men  was  kept 
strictly  secret  at  the  time,  and  was  first  published 
in  Mr.  Morley's  Life  of  Cobden.1  It  is  extremely 
interesting,  for  both  letters  are  highly  characteristic. 
Most  striking  is  the  contrast  between  the  drily 
formal  mode  of  address  adopted  on  either  side,  and 
the  sentiments  of  mutual  regard  and  esteem  which 
the  language  of  the  writers  displays.  This  exchange 
of  opinion  occurred  a  week  before  the  defeat  of  the 
Government  on  the  Irish  Bill,  which  Peel  and  Cob- 
den alike  assumed  to  be  inevitable.  It  therefore, 
of  course,  preceded  Peel's  famous  eulogy  of  Cobden 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  Immediately  after  the 

1  Vol.  i.  pp.  390-401. 
22 


THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT     23 

victory  of  his  cause  Cobden  left  England  for  a  tour  i846. 
on  the  Continent,  and  did  not  again  appear  in  the 
House  till  after  the  General  Election  of  1847. 

ThenewPrimeMinisterwasfifty-four  yearsofage. 
He  was  the  only  possible  successor  to  Sir  Robert. 
Lord  Grey,  the  Lord  Grey  of  the  Reform  Bill, 
was  dead,  and  Lord  Spencer,  better  known  as  Lord 
Althorp,  had  died  the  same  year  as  Lord  Grey. 
Lord  Melbourne  was  alive,  and  felt  some  disappoint- 
ment at  not  being  offered  a  place  in  the  new  Cabinet. 
But  even  if  he  had  not  been  strongly  opposed  to  Free 
Trade,  his  health  was  declining,  and  he  was  quite 
unfit  for  work  of  any  sort.  Lord  John  Russell  had 
failed  to  form  a  Government  in  December  1845, 
when  the  new  Lord  Grey  refused  to  join  a  Cabinet 
in  which  Lord  Palmerston  was  Foreign  Secretary, 
and  Lord  Palmerston  refused  to  join  a  Cabinet  in 
which  he  was  anything  else.1  A  difficulty  which 
proved  insurmountable  in  1845  might  well  have 
been  fatal  in  1846.  Nor  was  it  the  only  one.  The 
House  of  Commons,  elected  in  1841,  and  still  in 
existence,  contained  a  Tory  majority  of  ninety. 
The  Tories  were  now  broken  up,  but  the  Radicals 
were  an  uncertain  element,  and  there  was  no 
majority  for  the  Whigs.  The  Irish  were  not  more 
amenable  to  discipline.  O'Connell,  who  had  given 
such  powerful  support  to  Free  Trade,  was  merely 
the  shadow  of  a  great  name.  His  strength  was 
broken,  and  he  was  preparing  himself,  with  the 
devotion  of  a  good  Catholic,  for  another  world. 
The  Whigs  were  no  longer  the  favourites  at  Court 
they  once  had  been.  Queen  Victoria  had  passed 
from  the  influence  of  Lord  Melbourne  to  the 
influence  of  Prince  Albert,  and  Prince  Albert  was 
a  Peelite.  But  indeed  it  is  a  mistake,  and  an 

1  Lord  Grey's  conduct  and  motives  are  the  principal  subject  of  an 
interesting  article  on  the  second  instalment  of  the  ' '  Greville  Memoirs  " 
in  the  English  Historical  Review  for  January  1886. 


24    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  injurious  mistake,  to  suppose  that  Lord  Melbourne 
made  the  Queen  a  Whig.  He  made  her  a  con- 
stitutional sovereign.  As  a  statesman,  with  many 
faults,  he  possessed  the  rare  and  splendid  virtue, 
for  which  there  ought  to  be  a  better  name,  of 
absolute  disinterestedness.  In  the  political  educa- 
tion of  a  monarch  he  never  thought  of  his  party, 
nor  of  himself.  He  thought  only  of  England,  and 
by  no  man  was  this  fact  more  thoroughly  appre- 
ciated than  by  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Lord  John 
Russell  was  not  designed  by  nature,  or  disposed  by 
inclination  to  act  the  part  of  a  courtier.  He  never 
suffered  his  Sovereign  to  forget  that  she  belonged 
to  the  House  of  Hanover,  and  represented  the 
glorious  revolution  of  1688.  The  Queen,  with 
some  inconsistency,  was  devoted  to  the  House  of 
Stuart,  and  the  Prince's  views  of  monarchical 
government  did  not  materially  differ  from  those  of 
George  the  Third.  The  combination  was  scarcely 
auspicious.  Nevertheless  Lord  John  formed  his 
Administration  with  an  ease  and  rapidity  that, 
despite  his  pluck  and  self-confidence,  he  cannot 
have  expected.  That  much  of  the  credit  for  this 
result  was  his  own  is  unquestionable.  He  had  held 
high  office  with  distinction,  and  performed  great 
tasks  with  success.  He  had  borne  the  principal 
part  in  carrying  the  Reform  Bill  through  the  House 
of  Commons.  As  Leader  of  the  House  from  1835 
to  1841  he  had  belied  the  judgment  of  William 
the  Fourth,  and  commanded  general  esteem.  As 
Leader  of  the  Opposition  he  had  shown  that  cool 
and  undaunted  courage  which  never  at  any  time 
deserted  him.  In  1846,  and  for  some  years  after- 
wards, he  was  at  his  best.  Genial  and  conciliatory 
he  never  was,  to  either  friend  or  foe.  He  had  no 
tact,  and  he  was  not  a  man  of  the  world.  But 
these  deficiencies  are  comparative  trifles,  and  they 
were  the  worst  faults  that  had  yet  been  discovered 


THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT     25 

in  him.  His  intense  zeal  for  social  and  political  1346. 
progress  inspired  him  with  an  eloquence  not  the 
less  effective  because  he  reserved  it  for  great 
occasions.  But  brilliant  as  Lord  John's  qualifica- 
tions were,  he  was  at  this  time  under  the  shield 
of  one  greater  than  himself.  Peel  was  deter-  peers 
mined  to  keep  the  Whigs  in  office,  because  P° 
only  by  so  doing  could  he  keep  the  Protec- 
tionists out,  and  to  keep  Peel  out,  the  Protec- 
tionists were  willing  to  keep  the  Whigs  in.  For 
that  end  they  would  have  voted  for  Bright  and 
Cobden,  so  intense  was  their  hatred  of  their  former 
chief.  The  Peel  papers,  edited  by  Mr.  Charles 
Parker,  have  made  it  plain  that  Peel's  resolve  never 
to  take  office  again  was  not  absolutely  final.  If  he 
had  considered  Free  Trade  to  be  in  danger,  he  would 
have  overcome  his  repugnance,  and  put  on  harness 
once  more.  The  contingency  never  arose,  because 
Peel  was  the  first  man  in  the  country,  as  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  under  his  protection  the  Whigs  were  safe. 

It  was  not  Lord  John  Russell's  original  design  overtures 
to  form  a  purely  Whig  Administration.  He  offered 
places  to  Lord  Lincoln,  afterwards  Duke  of  New- 
castle, to  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  and  to  Lord 
Dalhousie,  for  whom  a  far  higher  destiny  was 
reserved.  But  these  three  Peelites  all  declined  to 
separate  themselves  in  any  way  from  their  Leader, 
and  Lord  John  then  turned  to  the  Whigs.  To 
Mr.  Cobden,  who  had  refused  with  just  contempt 
a  subordinate  place  in  1845,  he  made  no  offer, 
explaining  in  an  ambiguous  letter  that  "  circum- 
stances," one  of  which  was  Cobden's  projected 
absence  from  England,  made  it  impossible.  The 
other  circumstance  is  understood  to  have  been 
Cobden's  acceptance  of  a  pecuniary  testimonial 
from  his  admirers,  which  he  expended  in  the  pur- 
chase of  a  small  estate  in  Sussex,  once  the  property 
of  his  forbears.  Why  a  reward  so  honourably 


26    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  bestowed,  and  so  laboriously  earned,  should  dis- 
qualify a  statesman  from  the  public  service  of  his 
country  is  a  question  which  the  illustrious  owner 
of  Stratfieldsaye  would  have  found  some  difficulty 
in  answering. 

The   last   exclusively  Whig  Government  that 

has  held  office  in  England  consisted  of  seventeen 

members.     Next  to  the  Prime  Minister,  if  indeed 

that   qualification  be   required,    was   the  Foreign 

i^         Secretary,  Lord  Palmerston.     This  "  gay,  eupeptic 

Palmerston.  »  -A  *»    »  t»  •  •         •          o    J  ' 

son  or  Belial  was  now  in  his  sixty-second  year. 
No  English  statesman,  except  Walpole  and  Pitt, 
has  passed  so  large  a  proportion  of  his  public  life 
in  office.  The  ratio  was  forty-nine  years  of  office 
to  fifty-nine  of  public  life.  While  the  Tories  were 
in  power,  he  was  a  Tory.  For  more  than  twenty 
years,  from  1807  to  1828,  he  was  Secretary  at  War, 
or,  as  we  should  now  say,  Financial  Secretary  to 
the  War  Office.  During  that  long  period  he  seldom 
spoke,  and  Canning,  who  spoke  for  pleasure,  com- 
plained that  "  he  could  not  bring  that  three-decker 
Palmerston  into  action."  Canning  and  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  had  not  much  in  common.  But 
they  agreed  in  having  Lord  Palmerston  for  a 
colleague.  Whether  or  not  Lord  Palmerston  per- 
ceived that  the  Duke's  Government  would  be  a 
short  one,  he  resigned  in  1828  with  Grant  and 
Huskisson,  thus  making  it  possible  for  him  to  enter 
the  Government  of  Lord  Grey  in  1830.  He  then 
first  went  to  the  Foreign  Office.  But  Lord  Grey 
was  a  real  Prime  Minister,  and  very  much  his  own 
Foreign  Secretary.  Under  the  indifferent  and 
easy-going  Melbourne,  Palmerstonian  principles  had 
full  swing,  and  were  carried  out  by  their  author 
with  complete  freedom  from  restraint.  They  may 
be  briefly  described  as  general  interference  in  the 
affairs  of  Europe,  with  a  due  regard  for  the  interests 
of  England,  a  hearty  sympathy  with  European 


THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT     27 

Liberalism,  a  manly  hatred  of  oppression,  and  a  1340. 
supreme  contempt  for  the  susceptibilities  of  foreign 
Governments.  Lord  Palmerston  was  a  man  of 
fashion,  and  a  man  of  pleasure.  His  house  was  a 
social  centre  of  much  importance.  But  he  was 
also  pre-eminently  a  man  of  affairs,  who  never 
neglected  his  business,  and  was  always  master  of 
his  subject.  When  he  returned  to  office  under 
Lord  John,  no  man  in  Europe  could  be  compared 
with  him  for  knowledge  of  foreign  policy,  except 
Metternich  and  Guizot.  He  took  difficulties  as  a 
bold  rider  takes  a  stiff  fence,  relying  on  his  horse 
and  his  luck.  Hitherto  his  luck  had  been  very 
good,  and  his  horse  was  a  splendid  animal.  In 
1846  England  was  undoubtedly  the  first  Power  of 
the  world,  as  France  was  the  second.  There  was 
no  Germany,  and  the  United  States  were  mewing, 
as  Milton  says,  their  mighty  youth.  The  Emperor 
of  Austria  was  an  idiot,  and  the  King  of  Prussia  a 
dreamer.  The  Emperor  of  Russia  was  indeed  a 
formidable  personage.  But  Russia  was  even  less 
civilised  then  than  she  is  now,  and  even  further 
aloof  from  the  rest  of  mankind. 

Lord  Palmerston  could  not  bear  the  idea  of  "non- 
intervention" as  a  policy.  He  held  that  everything 
which  happened  in  Europe  had  a  legitimate  interest 
for  England,  and  that  the  least  she  could  do  was 
to  favour  the  parties  concerned  with  the  benefit 
of  her  public  advice.  Whether  Lord  Palmerston's 
foreign  policy  was  sound  or  not  he  pursued  it  with 
rare  acuteness,  with  singular  perseverance,  and,  so 
far  as  individuals  were  concerned,  with  infinite  tact 
and  good  humour.  But  it  was  very  difficult  for 
any  Prime  Minister  to  restrain  him,  and  his  return 
to  his  old  post  was  excessively  irritating  to  the 
principal  diplomatists  of  Europe.  Palmerston, 
however,  thoroughly  understood  his  countrymen, 
and  especially  the  middle  class,  which  then  con- 


28    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  trolled  the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  never  an 
orator,  nor,  except  on  his  own  special  topics,  did  he 
shine  in  debate.  But  the  House  and  the  country 
liked  his  breezy,  sportsman -like  way  of  treating 
serious  subjects,  and  they  were  rather  proud  of 
the  hatred  felt  for  him  by  the  Chanceries  of  the 
Continent.  He  was  a  dangerous  Minister,  but  not 
a  weak  one,  and  upon  the  whole  he  was  the 
strongest  man  in  the  Cabinet. 

Lord  Grey.  The  Secretary  of  State  for  War  and  the  Colonies 
was  Lord  Grey,  the  third  Earl,  who  had  succeeded 
to  his  father's  title  in  the  previous  year.  His 
objections  to  Palmerston  had  been  overcome,  and 
he  had  persuaded  himself  that  there  was  some 
change  in  the  situation,  or  in  Palmerston,  or  in 
both.  The  truth  was  that  he  had  changed  his  own 
mind.  He  desired  office,  not  from  any  unworthy 
motive,  but  because  he  was  conscious  of  his 
capacity  to  serve  the  public  in  an  administrative 
department.  During  the  later  portion  of  his  very 
long  life  Lord  Grey  was  best  known  as  an  active 
and  hostile  critic  of  both  Liberal  and  Conservative 
Governments.  But  in  1846  his  opinions  were 
regarded  by  moderate  Whigs  like  Mr.  Evelyn 
Denison,  afterwards  Speaker,  as  perilously  extreme, 
and  he  would  scarcely  have  been  a  Minister  if 
he  had  not  been  a  Grey.  He  was  a  scientific 
economist,  and  a  free  trader  by  conviction. 
Indeed,  politics  were  to  him  an  exact  science,  so 
that  he  was  never  in  doubt.  His  ability  and 
sincerity  were  accompanied  by  an  arrogant  temper 
and  a  domineering  spirit.  But  comparatively  little 
interest  was  taken  in  his  appointment.  For  the 
feeling  of  most  people  about  the  Colonies  at  that 
time  was  a  hope  that,  now  Canada  had  been  pacified, 
we  should  hear  no  more  about  them.  There  were 
two  Greys  in  the  Cabinet,  belonging  to  different 
branches  of  the  same  family.  But  they  were  very 


THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT     29 

unlike  each  other.  Sir  George  Grey,  the  Home  ig46. 
Secretary,  was  the  model  of  a  courteous  gentleman,  ^rreGeor 
and  a  moderate  statesman.  He  was  without  brilliant 
or  conspicuous  talents.  But  perhaps  no  Minister  of 
his  time  was  so  universally  respected  by  all  parties 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  was  Mr.  Charles  Wood,  who  sir  chnries 
became  Sir  Charles  a  few  months  afterwards  on 
the  death  of  his  father,  and  was  subsequently 
created  Viscount  Halifax.  Lord  Halifax  lived  to 
extreme  old  age,  and  from  the  date  of  his  double 
first  at  Oxford  to  the  day  of  his  death,  no  one  ever 
doubted  his  great  ability.  But  the  strong  point  of 
the  Whigs  was  not  finance,  and  Sir  Charles  Wood 
was  no  exception  to  the  rule.  The  best  that  could 
be  said  for  his  Budgets  was  that  they  were  better 
than  Mr.  Spring  Rice's,  or  Sir  Francis  Baring's. 
The  Marquess  of  Lansdowne,  the  President  of  the  J^^J*1* 
Council,  and  Leader  of  the  House  of  Lords,  was  the 
recognised  head  of  Whig  society  and  a  trusted  coun- 
sellor of  Whigs  in  distress.  Lord  Lansdowne  was 
not  ambitious,  and  never  would  accept  the  highest 
office  in  the  State.  But  he  was  regarded  as  indispens- 
able to  Whig  Cabinets,  and  he  possessed  the  happy 
gift  of  smoothing  differences  among  his  colleagues. 
It  is  no  disadvantage  for  any  Government,  even 
in  this  constitutional  country,  to  have  a  friend  at 
Court.  The  friend  at  Court  in  this  case  was 
George  Villiers,  Earl  of  Clarendon,  to  whom  both 
the  Queen  and  Prince  Albert  were  sincerely 
attached.  Lord  Clarendon  became  President  of 
the  Board  of  Trade,  and  as  he  had  been  a  Com- 
missioner of  Customs  for  ten  years,  he  might  fairly 
be  assumed  to  have  some  knowledge  of  busi- 
ness. If  the  singular  arrangement  proposed  by 
Lord  John  Russell  in  1845  had  been  carried  out, 
he  would  have  been  Mr.  Cobden's  official  chief. 
But  he  had  been  Minister  at  Madrid  as  well  as 


30    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  Commissioner  of  Customs,  and  his  heart  was  in 
diplomacy,  not  in  trade.  He  was  a  keen-witted, 
accomplished,  cynical  man  of  the  world,  having 
more  knowledge  of  foreign  affairs  than  any  other 
member  of  the  Cabinet  except  Lord  Palmerston, 
with  whose  meddlesome  tactics  he  was  not  in 
sympathy.  Lord  Clarendon,  though  he  died  in 
office  under  Mr.  Gladstone,  was  an  aristocrat  in 
the  proper  sense  of  that  term,  which  denotes  not  a 
class  but  a  creed.  He  believed  in  the  theory  of 
Government  by  a  small  and  specially  qualified  set 
of  men.  The  Board  of  Trade  did  riot  suit  him, 
and  he  was  soon  afterwards,  as  we  shall  see,  removed 
to  a  very  different  post. 

The  members  of  the  last  Whig  Cabinet  have 
long  since  been  removed  by  death.  But  there  was 
one  among  them  whose  memory  can  never  perish 
while  English  literature  survives.  Lord  John's 
first  Paymaster  -  General  was  Thomas  Babington 
Macaulay,  then  in  his  forty -sixth  year.  Mr. 
Macaulay  was  already  known  as  a  brilliant  orator, 
a  popular  poet,  a  still  more  popular  essayist,  and 
a  talker  whose  vast  stores  of  erudition  were 
constantly  displayed  in  only  too  plentiful  abund- 
ance. The  Penal  Code  for  India,  which  he  had  to 
draw  up  when  legal  member  of  Council,  was  not 
yet  in  force,  and  no  volume  of  his  great  History 
had  hitherto  appeared.  He  was,  however,  already 
engaged  upon  it,  and  it  absorbed  his  attention  to  a 
degree  which  would  have  made  any  laborious  office 
impossible  for  him.  A  man  whose  mind  was  in 
the  seventeenth  century  could  not  deal  to  much 
purpose  with  the  practical  needs  of  the  nineteenth. 
He  made  some  excellent  speeches  from  the 
Treasury  Bench.  But  his  mornings  were  spent  in  the 
British  Museum,  for  the  duties  of  the  Paymaster- 
General  were  light.  On  the  other  hand,  a  modest 
salary  of  two  thousand  a  year,  long  since  abolished, 


THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT     31 

represented   the   enormous    profits   made   by  the  1846. 
Paymasters  of  George  the  Third.     But  even  from 
the  patronage  of  Chelsea  Hospital  Macaulay  was 
soon  to  be  released  by  circumstances  over  which 
he  had  no  control. 

The  Duke  of  Wellington,  though  he  could  no  T^  Duke  of 

i  -u.   •       j.U       r<    U-       1  L    '        J     U       o-U       f^  »     W^ngton. 

longer  sit  in  the  Cabinet,  retained,  by  the  Queen  s 
express  desire,  the  position  of  Commander-in-Chief. 
No  other  soldier  would,  it  was  thought,  be  acceptable 
to  the  army.  The  Duke  has  been  finely  described 
as  "  the  greatest  man  that  was  ever  sincerely  con- 
tent to  serve," l  and  he  cheerfully  responded  to  Her 
Majesty's  appeal.  Yet  it  would  perhaps  have  been 
better  for  the  country  and  for  his  own  reputation 
if  he  had  retired  into  private  life.  He  was  seventy- 
seven.  His  bodily  health  was  good,  and  it  cannot 
be  said  that  his  mind  ever  actually  decayed.  But 
he  became  peevish,  irritable,  and  fretful.  He 
worried  himself  and  others  about  trifles  which  a 
few  years  before  he  would  have  heartily  despised. 
He  was  perfectly  loyal  to  the  Whig  Government, 
as  he  would  have  been  to  any  Government,  and  he 
was  on  excellent  terms  with  Lord  John.  Indeed 
he  much  preferred  him  to  Sir  Robert,  against 
whom  he  bore  a  lasting  grudge  for  having  forced 
him,  as  he  considered,  to  vote  against  his  principles 
in  favour  of  Free  Trade.  The  Duke  in  his  last 
years  was  perpetually  complaining  that  the  national 
defences  were  inadequate,  and  he  was  right.  He 
was  never  an  alarmist,  and  always  an  economist,  if 
only  because  he  believed  that  extravagance  would 
endanger  the  political  supremacy  of  his  order.  But 
he  had  lost  his  official  influence  with  his  ancient 
vigour,  and  his  warnings  were  unheeded. 

The  Duke,  as  Commander-in-Chief,  could  not  The 
well  lead  the  Opposition  in  the  House  of  Lords, 

1  Cory's  Guide  to  Modern  English  History,  vol.  i.  p.  10.     Kegan  Paul, 
1880. 


32    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  and  that  duty  devolved  upon  Lord  Stanley,  after- 
£JJ  wards  Earl  of  Derby,  three  times  Prime  Minister 
of  England.  Lord  Stanley  had  been  called  up  to 
the  House  of  Lords  in  his  father's  barony  two 
years  before,  when  he  was  Secretary  of  State  for 
the  Colonies  in  the  Cabinet  of  Sir  Robert  Peel. 
It  was  a  misfortune  for  the  cause  of  Protection,  to 
which  he  was  at  that  time  devoted,  that  he  had 
left  the  House  of  Commons.  For  he  was  the 
prince  of  Parliamentary  debaters,  and  a  match  in 
this  respect  even  for  Peel.  He  had  brilliant  gifts 
and  great  abilities,  but  not  the  wisdom  and  fore- 
sight which  belong  to  the  highest  statesmanship. 
Nor  was  he  even  moderately  well  informed.  He 
knew  the  classics,  the  Turf  Guide.,  and  very  little 
else.  Serious  political  conviction,  except  where 
the  Church  was  concerned,  he  had  none.  He  was 
a  zealous  churchman,  and  he  confounded  the 
Church  with  the  establishment.  That  is  the  one 
consistent  element  in  a  career  otherwise 
He  had  been  a  Whig,  and  the  most  arde 
Parliamentary  reformers.  He  was  now  a  Tory 
and  chief  of  the  revolt  against  Free  Trade.  He  left 
Lord  Grey  rather  than  consent  that  the  surplus 
revenues  of  the  Irish  Church  should  be  appro- 
priated to  secular  purposes.  He  left  Sir  Robert 
Peel  rather  than  agree  to  the  abolition  of  the 
Corn  Laws.  It  seemed  impossible  for  him  to  act 
long  with  any  one.  Yet  if  the  Protectionists 
could  have  formed  a  Government  he  would  have 
been  their  chief.  Lord  Stanley's  private  and 
personal  character  was  stainless.  But  political 
principle  was  a  thing  he  seemed  incapable  of 
understanding,  and  with  the  almost  solitary  excep- 
tion of  Lord  Malmesbury,  those  who  knew  him 
best  trusted  him  least.  The  most  vivid  descrip- 
tion of  him  is  Sir  Henry  Taylor's.1  "  He  was 

1  Autobiography,  vol.  i.  p.  131. 


THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT     33 

greatly  admired  by  a  large  party  in  the  country —  1846. 
perhaps  by  the  country  generally — throughout  a 
long  life,  and  it  was  customary  to  call  him 
'  chivalrous.'  I  think  he  was  not  chivalrous.  He 
was  a  very  able  and  capable  man ;  he  had  force, 
energy,  and  vivacity ;  and  he  was  an  effective 
speaker,  always  clear,  seldom  brilliant.  He  was 
not  a  man  of  genius ;  nor  could  it  be  said  that  he 
had  a  great  intellect.  He  had  the  gifts  of  a  party 
politician,  such  as  eminent  party  politicians  were 
in  the  generations  immediately  preceding  his  own, 
rather  than  in  his  own — subsisting  throughout  his 
life,  so  far  as  literature  is  concerned,  mainly  upon 
the  scholarship  and  academical  accomplishments 
with  which  he  began  it,  and  playing  the  game  of 
politics  with  more  of  party  than  of  public  spirit, 
and  with  not  much  perhaps  of  personal  friendliness." 
Taylor  underrates  Lord  Stanley  as  an  orator.  But 
in  other  respects  his  estimate,  though  it  may  be 
coloured  by  personal  dislike,  is  not  far  from  the 
truth. 

In  the  House  of  Commons  there  can  hardly  be 
said  to  have  been  any  Opposition  at  all.  Writing 
on  the  4th  of  July  1846,  Mr.  Charles  Greville,  to 
whose  journals  every  writer  and  every  student  of 
Victorian  history  owes  an  inestimable  debt,  says, 
"  Such  a  transfer  of  power  from  one  Minister  to 
another  the  world  never  saw  before — no  rivalry, 
no  mortification,  no  disappointment,  nor  triumph, 
nor  coldness ;  all  has  been  civility,  cordiality,  and 
the  expression  of  feelings  not  merely  amiable  but 
cordial."  The  principal  object  of  the  late  Prime 
Minister  was  to  support  his  successor.  The 
nominal  leader  of  the  Protectionists  was  Lord 
George  Bentinck,  son  of  the  Duke  of  Portland,  Lord  G 

"  Bentinck. 

and  member  for  King's  Lynn.  But  for  the 
accident  that  his  Life  was  written  by  a  man 
of  genius,  Lord  George  Bentinck  would  have 

VOL.  I  D 


34    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  been  long  since  forgotten.  He  was  a  man  of 
very  doubtful  character,  and  his  political  capacity 
was  slight.  He  had  sat  for  nearly  twenty  years 
in  Parliament,  first  as  a  Canningite,  then  as  a 
moderate  Whig,  then  as  a  Conservative,  without 
making  a  speech  of  the  slightest  importance. 
Indeed  so  totally  incapable  of  oratory  did  he 
conceive  himself  to  be  that  he  seriously  attempted 
to  get  a  lawyer  into  the  House  for  the  purpose  of 
making  the  speeches  which  he  could  not  make 
himself.1  From  this  absurd  design,  however,  he 
was  ultimately  dissuaded,  and  at  last,  after  the 
Corn  Law  Bill  had  been  read  a  second  time,  he 
began  his  campaign.  It  was  inspired  by  a  bitter 
hatred  of  the  League  and  of  Cobden,  but  still 
more  of  Peel.  Lord  George  was  soon  found  to  be 
fluent  enough,  and  ready  to  address  the  House  at 
great  length  upon  almost  any  subject.  But  his 
arguments  were  for  the  most  part  worthless,  and 
his  manipulation  of  statistics  proved  nothing  ex- 
cept his  own  inability  to  deal  with  them.  He  was 
utterly  uneducated,  and  knew  nothing  except  his 
stud  book.  Of  economic  science  he  was  as  ignorant 
as  a  baby.  That  the  House  of  Commons  should 
have  listened  to  him  is  amazing.  But  he  proved 
his  sincerity  by  selling  his  horses,  and  his  zeal  by 
never  leaving  the  House.  He  represented  the 
feelings  of  the  landed  interest,  and  he  was  cheered 
by  many  who  must  have  known  that  he  was  talk- 
ing nonsense  because  of  his  virulent  attacks  upon 
Sir  Robert  Peel.  He  did  not,  however,  confine 
himself  to  Sir  Robert,  and  the  imputations  upon 
Lord  Lyndhurst  with  which  he  disgraced  himself 
in  the  summer  of  1846  seem  to  show  a  disordered 
mind.  Lord  Lyndhurst  was  not  incapable  of 
jobbery,  nor  averse  from  intrigue.  But  the  legal 

1  Serjeant  Byles,  afterwards  Mr.  Justice  Byles,  author  of  Byles  on 
Bills. 


THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT     35 

and  ecclesiastical  patronage  of  which  Lord  George  1846. 
Bentinck  complained  was  as  innocent  as  Lord 
George's  connection  with  the  turf  had  been  the 
reverse.  Such  was  the  leader  whom  the  country 
gentlemen  of  England  preferred  to  Sir  Robert 
Peel.  They  sat  together  for  a  time  on  the  same 
side  as  the  Government. 

The  first  business  of  the  new  Cabinet  was  to  Th«  sugar 
readjust  the  duties  on  sugar,  which  were  then 
voted  annually,  and  to  make  them  permanent. 
There  was  a  prohibitive  tax  on  foreign  sugar, 
chiefly  grown  in  Cuba  and  Brazil,  which  was  the 
produce  of  forced  labour.  The  supply  of  sugar 
was  therefore  practically  restricted  to  the  West 
Indian  Colonies  of  Great  Britain,  and  it  fell  far 
short  of  the  demand.  Lord  John  Russell  proposed 
that  the  duties  should  be  equalised,  without  regard 
to  the  question  whether  the  imported  sugar  was 
grown  by  slaves  or  by  free  men.  This  was  in  strict 
agreement  with  the  policy  applied  to  corn,  and  it 
was  also  the  policy  of  Lord  Melbourne's  Adminis- 
tration, upon  which  he  had  been  defeated  in  1841. 
But  it  encountered  a  double  opposition  from  Pro- 
tectionists on  the  one  hand,  and  from  Abolitionists 
on  the  other.  Lord  John's  arguments  were  really 
unanswerable,  and  were  certainly  never  answered. 
Cheap  sugar  is  only  less  important  than  cheap 
bread,  and  sugar  in  England  was  then  very  dear. 
The  dearness  was  due  to  scarcity,  and  the  scarcity 
was  caused  by  law.  Here  then  was  an  evil  which 
Parliament  had  brought  about,  and  which  Parlia- 
ment could  take  away.  Parliament  therefore  was 
bound  to  remove  it.  The  horrors  of  slavery,  upon 
which  many  speakers  dilated,  were  nothing  to  the 
point.  Slavery  had  been  abolished  in  the  British 
dominions,  and  the  British  Legislature  could  do  no 
more.  No  impression  whatever  was  made  upon 
Cuban  or  Brazilian  slavery  by  the  antiquated  tariff 


36    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  which  raised  the  price  of  the  article  "  so  cheering  to 
infancy,  and  so  soothing  to  old  age."  The  Aboli- 
tionists made  no  objection  to  slave-grown  cotton, 
slave-grown  tobacco,  or  slave-grown  coffee.  From 
all  nations  entitled  by  treaty  to  the  most  favourable 
terms  we  were  bound  to  admit  what  was  made  by 
slaves,  while  even  from  Brazil  and  Cuba  the  British 
merchant  could  obtain  sugar  through  the  Continent 
at  an  enhanced  rate.  Lord  George  Bentinck  took 
up  and  adopted  the  amendment  moved  by  Lord 
Sandon  to  the  Whig  proposals  of  1841,  and  sup- 
ported by  Sir  Robert  Peel.  He  asked  the  House 
to  declare  that  "the  proposed  reduction  of  duty 
upon  foreign  slave-grown  sugar  was  alike  unjust 
and  impolitic,  as  tending  to  check  the  advance  of 
Production  by  British  free  labour,  and  to  give  a 
great  additional  stimulus  to  the  slave  trade." 
Lord  George  did  not  care  about  either  slavery  or 
the  slave  trade.  He  wanted  no  doubt  to  uphold 
Protection,  but  he  wanted  above  all  things  to  put 
Peel  in  a  dilemma.  He  did  not  succeed.  On  the 
contrary,  he  gave  Sir  Robert  an  opportunity  of 
stating  his  position,  which  was  a  perfectly  constitu- 
tional and  Parliamentary  one.  For  the  nonce  the 
great  free  trader  was  faithless  to  Free  Trade.  He 
held  that  the  question  of  slavery  took  the  case  out 
of  the  ordinary  rule,  and  on  principle  therefore  he 
was  against  the  change.  But  he  had  also  to  con- 
sider the  result  of  turning  the  Government  out. 
He  would  not  accept  office  himself,  and  he  would 
not  do  anything  to  increase  the  risk  of  a  Pro- 
tectionist Administration. 

Mr.  Disraeli,  in  an  extremely  clever  and  para- 
doxical speech,  of  which  it  is  hard  to  say  how  much 
he  believed,  declared  that  the  Sugar  Bill  would  be 
the  destruction  of  our  colonial  system,  and  that  we 
should  have  to  reconstruct  it.  He  then  put  forward 
the  remarkable  theory  that  the  history  of  England 


THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT     37 

is  a  history  of  reaction.  He  proved  this  theory,  or  1846. 
pretended  to  prove  it,  by  a  severely  simple  process. 
He  contrasted  the  policy  of  the  Commonwealth 
with  the  policy  of  the  Restoration.  This  is  absurd 
enough.  But  when  Mr.  Disraeli  came  five  years 
afterwards  to  describe  the  debate  in  which  he  had 
himself  borne  a  part,  he  added  one  of  those  striking 
aphorisms  which  may  be  found  scattered  up  and 
down  his  published  works.  "  The  truth  is,"  he 
wrote,  "progress  and  reaction  are  but  words  to 
mystify  the  millions.  They  mean  nothing ;  they 
are  nothing ;  they  are  phrases  and  not  facts.  All 
is  race."1  The  last  three  words  represent  the  pro- 
foundest  mind  of  this  extraordinary  man.  He  calls 
himself  in  the  Life  "  a  follower  of  Lord  George 
Bentinck."  In  everything  except  social  position 
he  was  as  much  superior  to  Lord  George  as  one 
man  can  be  to  another.  He  was  described  in  after 
years  by  the  greatest  of  his  rivals  as  the  most 
remarkable  personage  in  European  politics  during 
the  nineteenth  century.  He  had  been  at  no 
university,  and  no  public  school.  His  father  was 
an  antiquary  and  a  bookworm,  who  passed  his  life 
in  a  library,  and  whose  collections  of  literary  anec- 
dotes still  amuse  the  curious.  Isaac  Disraeli  was 
nominally  a  Jew,  and  really  a  free  thinker.  He 
cared  nothing  for  the  Jewish  or  the  Christian 
religion.  By  the  advice  of  Samuel  Rogers  he  had 
Benjamin  christened,  not  as  an  essential  require- 
ment for  the  next  world,  but  as  a  desirable 
qualification  in  this.  Mr.  Disraeli  throughout  his 
life  professed  the  Christian  faith.  He  believed,  so 
far  as  he  can  be  said  to  have  had  any  religious  belief, 
that  religion  was  a  secret  of  the  Semitic  race.  His 
father  introduced  him  to  the  best  literary  society, 
of  which,  so  long  as  he  cared  for  any  society  at  all, 
he  was  honourably  and  sincerely  fond.  In  the 

1  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck,  p.  331. 


38    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  House  of  Commons  he  was  then  unpopular,  and  his 
maiden  speech,  though  clever  enough,  had  been  a 
failure.  But  his  brilliant  talents,  his  singular 
audacity,  and  his  boundless  ambition,  triumphed 
over  all  obstacles,  of  which  his  Hebrew  origin  was 
perhaps,  odd  as  the  fact  may  seem  nowadays,  the 
most  serious.  He  applied  to  Peel  for  office  in 
1841,  and  Peel,  who  hated  him,  refused  it.  He 
took  his  revenge  five  years  later  in  a  series  of  most 
violent  attacks  upon  the  Minister  of  Free  Trade, 
although  he  had  himself  satirised  Protection  in  a 
story  called  Popanilla.  By  birth  and  training  an 
Englishman,  by  descent  a  Portuguese  Jew,  he  was 
sufficiently  detached  from  British  habits  of  mind 
to  regard  the  affairs  of  the  United  Kingdom  with 
an  impartial  scrutiny.  He  understood  England,  as 
Napoleon  understood  France,  the  more  thoroughly 
for  being  half  a  foreigner,  and  he  had  an  eye  which 
naturally  penetrated  below  the  surface  of  things. 
He  was  interesting,  he  was  original,  and  he  was 
already  a  genuine  force  in  Parliament. 
The  safety  The  second  reading  of  the  Sugar  Bill  was 
emment.v'  carried  by  a  majority  of  130,  which  proved  beyond 
the  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  the  Ministry  were 
safe  till  the  next  General  Election,  or,  in  other 
words,  for  twelve  months.  What  Charles  Greville 
had  written  on  the  4th  of  July  was  strictly 
correct,  and  is  an  admirable  summary  of  the 
situation.  "  So  curious  a  change  in  so  short  a 
time  was  never  seen.  A  few  weeks  ago  hundreds 
of  people  fancied  Peel  would  never  go  out ;  they 
could  not  tell  why,  but  they  insisted  that  the 
difficulty  of  forming  another  Government,  and  its 
weakness  when  formed,  would  be  insurmountable. 
If  Lord  John  came  in,  how  was  he  to  stay  in  ? 
everybody  asked,  and  the  most  sanguine  Whigs 
did  not  pretend  to  answer  and  explain  how,  and 
generally  professed  no  wish  to  turn  out  Peel. 


THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT     39 

Well,  Lord  John  comes  in,  forms  a  very  strong  1846. 
Government  with  unparalleled  facility,  receives 
every  assistance  and  every  assurance  of  support 
from  the  Ministers  he  had  turned  out,  finds  himself 
not  only  without  an  organised  Opposition  in  Parlia- 
ment, but  without  an  enemy  or  a  malcontent  in 
any  quarter.  His  advent  to  power  is  received,  in 
the  country  at  least,  with  acquiescence,  if  not  with 
delight ;  he  has  no  difficulties  to  encounter,  no 
legacy  of  embarrassments  to  perplex  him,  and  as 
far  as  all  appearances  go,  his  Government  is,  and 
for  some  time  at  least,  promises  to  be,  the  strongest 
the  country  has  ever  seen."  The  Government  was 
not  so  strong  as  it  looked,  and  the  weakness  of  its 
finance  was  deplorable.  But  Mr.  Greville  did  not 
set  up  for  a  prophet.  The  value  of  his  journals  is 
that  they  faithfully  record  the  impressions  of  the 
day. 

The  passage  of  the  Sugar  Bill  through  the  Lords 
was  easy  and  rapid.  Lord  Grey  and  Lord  Lansdowne 
showed  themselves  better  opponents  of  slavery,  as 
well  as  better  advocates  of  Free  Trade,  than  their 
adversaries,  when  they  argued  that  forced  labour 
could  not  in  the  long  run  hold  its  own  against  good 
wages,  skilled  workmen,  and  improved  machinery. 
One  eloquent  voice  was  raised  in  the  House  of 
Lords  against  the  Bill.  Samuel  Wilberforce,  Bishop  wn. 
Bishop  of  Oxford,  faithful  to  his  father's  memory, 
protested  with  vehemence  and  animation  against 
what  he  thought  the  encouragement  of  human 
servitude.  He  was  no  Protectionist,  and  his 
motives  were  above  suspicion,  but  his  studies  had 
not  gone  deep  either  in  political  economy  or  in 
anything  else.  With  all  his  brilliant  gifts  and 
accomplishments,  he  was  a  man  of  shallow  and 
superficial  mind.  By  the  mere  art  of  public  speak- 
ing and  preaching,  which  he  possessed  and  cultivated 
to  a  supereminent  degree,  he  became  more  popular 


1846.  and  more  famous  than  any  of  his  Episcopal  brethren. 
His  admirers  used  to  call  him,  and  he  liked  to  be 
called,  "The  Great  Lord  Bishop  of  England."1 
His  theological  orthodoxy  was  unimpeachable,  and, 
notwithstanding  his  devotion  to  social  amusements, 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  his  unctuous 
piety  was  insincere.  No  one  could  make  himself 
more  agreeable,  insomuch  that  he  was  courted  and 
feasted  by  fine  folk  who  forgot  that  he  was  a  clergy- 
man, and  only  remembered  that  he  was  a  wit. 
But  his  knowledge  was  slender,  his  intellect  had 
no  bottom,  and  he  exposed  himself  to  ridicule  by 
laying  down  the  law  upon  scientific  subjects  of 
which  he  was  totally  ignorant.  Although  his 
career  was  a  brilliant  and  a  triumphant  one,  there 
was  nothing  permanent  about  his  fame.  He  was 
supported  on  this  occasion  by  a  far  abler  man, 
Bishop  Blomfield  of  London.  But  the  Govern- 
ment carried  their  Bill  without  difficulty  in  a  thin 
House. 

They  did  not,  however,  get  through  even  their 
first  short  session  without  blunders.  They  had 
turned  out  Sir  Robert  Peel  by  defeating  a  Coer- 
cion  Bill  for  Ireland.  But  their  Lord-Lieutenant, 
the  Earl  of  Bessborough,  told  them  that  he  could 
not  keep  Ireland  quiet  by  means  of  the  ordinary 
law,  and  an  Arms  Bill  was  accordingly  introduced 
by  the  Chief  Secretary,  Mr.  Labouchere.2  This 
was  no  doubt  a  very  different  measure  from  the 
drastic  and  stringent  Bill  of  Sir  Robert  Peel. 
But  the  inconsistency  was  glaring,  the  Radicals 
grumbled,  and  the  second  reading  was  only  carried 
by  thirty-three  votes.  A  week  afterwards  Lord 
John  Russell  announced  the  abandonment  of  the 

1  Life  of  Bishop  Wilberforce,  vol.  iii.  p.  236.  The  second  and  third 
volumes  of  this  work  have  great  interest  and  value.  The  first  was 
written  for  edification. 

8  Afterwards  the  first  Lord  Taunton. 


Bill,  and  Lord  Bessborough  had  to  perform  an  1846. 
impossible  task.1  A  more  serious  error  was  the 
vicious  system  of  relief  works  which,  in  the  first 
fear  of  impending  famine,  Lord  John  proposed  to 
the  House  of  Commons  on  the  same  day,  the  17th 
of  August.  A  full  account  of  the  Irish  famine, 
the  most  awful  calamity  which  ever  visited 
that  land  of  misfortune,  must  be  reserved  for 
another  chapter.  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  accused  of 
exaggerating  the  prospect.  He  came  nearer  the 
appreciation  of  it  than  any  other  man.  But  even 
his  estimate  fell  far  short  of  the  truth.  The 
Cabinet  did  not  understand  the  situation,  and 
went  the  wrong  way  to  work.  The  supply  of 
Indian  corn,  introduced  by  Sir  Robert  Peel  before 
he  left  office,  did  more  good  than  all  their  roads 
from  nothing  to  nowhere.  The  policy  of  Lord 
John  and  his  colleagues,  as  embodied  in  the  Labour 
Rate  Act,  was  that  the  Barony,  or  Petty  Sessions, 
should  specify  to  the  Lord-Lieutenant  the  public 
works  upon  which  the  people  could  be  best  em- 
ployed, and  that  the  requisite  funds  should  be 
advanced  by  the  Treasury  on  loan.  By  the 
month  of  September,  thirty  thousand  persons 
were  engaged  in  making  roads  which  were  not 
wanted.  By  the  end  of  November  the  number 
was  four  hundred  thousand,  who  were  receiving 
weekly  or  daily  wages  at  the  annual  rate  of  five 
millions  sterling.  The  potato  crop  of  1846  had 
been  far  worse  than  the  potato  crop  of  1845,  and 
the  Irish  people  were  on  the  brink  of  destruction. 
No  sane  Minister  could,  in  such  circumstances, 
have  made  himself  responsible  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  Corn  Laws.  The  Government  were  stricken 

1  Fifteen  Irish  Magistrates,  including  O'Connell,  who  had  been 
struck  off  the  Commission  of  the  Peace  by  the  Tory  Government  for 
attending  meetings  in  favour  of  Repeal,  were  restored  by  the  Whigs 
(15th  Aug.) 


42    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  with  panic.  That  this  is  not  too  strong  a  phrase 
may  be  shown  from  Mr.  Goulburn's  letter  to  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  dated  the  24th  of  November,  and 
published  in  the  third  volume  of  the  Peel  Papers.1 
"The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,"  says  Mr. 
Goulburn,  "  called  on  me  yesterday,  and  I  had 
some  conversation  with  him  as  to  Ireland.  Nothing 
can  equal  the  picture  which  he  himself  drew  of  the 
state  of  that  country,  nor  did  he  hesitate  to  avow 
an  utter  inability  to  devise  any  means  of  meeting 
the  present  difficulty  satisfactorily,  still  more  to 
provide  for  the  yet  greater  evils  which  appeared  to 
threaten  it  in  future.  He  stated  that  in  many 
parts  of  Ireland  there  was  an  absolute  stagnation 
of  private  employment ;  that  of  land  which  usually 
grew  corn,  very  little  indeed  was  now  cultivated 
or  sown ;  that  in  many  districts  farming  occupa- 
tion has  entirely  ceased ;  and  that  there  was,  in 
consequence,  reason  to  anticipate  a  tremendous 
deficiency  in  corn  next  year,  merely  from  the 
refusal  of  occupiers  to  cultivate  their  land."  The 
waste  of  public  money  at  this  time,  though  it  sinks 
into  insignificance  when  compared  with  the  sick- 
ness and  loss  of  life  in  Ireland,  was  deplorable. 
Colonel  Douglas,  one  of  the  Government  In- 
spectors, declared  that  "the  relief  works  would 
answer  no  other  purpose  than  that  of  obstructing 
the  public  conveyances."  Sir  James  Graham, 
writing  to  Peel  on  the  9th  of  December,  says, 
"Engineer  officers  are  laying  out  drains  on  the 
lawns  of  country  gentlemen,  their  pay  being 
advanced  by  the  public,  and  the  unhappy  estates 
being  charged  with  the  debt  for  the  work  so 
superintended."  The  acuteness  of  the  distress  had 
one  good  effect.  It  brought  all  classes  in  Ireland 
together.  Protestants  and  Catholics,  Orangemen 
and  Repealers,  joined  in  an  endeavour  to  save  the 

1  Pages  468-469. 


THE  LAST  WHIG  GOVERNMENT     43 

people  from  starvation.     One  of  those  most  active  1846. 
in  assisting   the  Whig  Viceroy  was   the   Orange 
Tory,  Lord  Roden. 

The  Government  of  Lord  John  Russell  was  the 
first  practically  to  consider  the  subject  of  Army 
Reform.  But  the  matter  was  raised  by  a  soldier 
and  a  private  member,  Major  Layard.  On  the 
3rd  of  August  he  called  attention  to  the  terms  of 
enlistment,  and  to  excessive  flogging.  Enlistment  Hogging  in 
was  then  for  life,  and  there  was  no  limit  to  the*11 
number  of  lashes  which  the  sentence  of  a  court- 
martial  could  inflict.  A  recent  case  of  suicide 
after  flogging  had  shocked  the  public  mind,  and 
Major  Layard,  on  that  part  of  his  subject,  had  the 
feeling  of  the  House  with  him.  Enlistment  stood 
over.  But  the  Duke  of  Wellington  ordered  that 
more  than  fifty  lashes  should  not  in  future  be 
given.  The  Duke,  though  not  soft-hearted,  still 
less  sentimental,  was  essentially  humane,  and  he 
expressed  a  hope  to  the  House  of  Lords  that 
flogging  in  the  army  might  soon  be  abolished 
altogether.  It  was  not,  however,  abolished  for 
nearly  thirty  years  after  his  death. 

One  piece  of  legislation  carried  in  1846  has  had 
more  effect  upon  the  habits  and  convenience  of  the 
people  than  many  measures  of  far  more  ambitious 
scope  and  promise.  This  was  the  Small  Debts 
Bill,  which  the  Whigs  took  over  from  the  Tories 
and  carried  into  law.  The  Bill  established  the 
system  of  County  Courts,  without  which  the  busi-  county 
ness  of  modern  England  would  very  soon  come  to 
a  standstill.  The  title  "  County  Court  "  is  an  old 
one,  but  the  institution  had  fallen  into  practical 
disuse.  There  were  some  local  and  customary 
tribunals,  Courts  of  Conscience  and  Courts  of 
Request,  exercising  an  ill-defined  jurisdiction,  and 
most  inefficiently  served.  But  all  serious  litiga- 
tion was  conducted  in  the  Superior  Courts  at  a 


44    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  cost  which  was  often  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
sum  involved.  The  Bill  provided  for  the  creation 
of  District  Courts  throughout  England,  each  under 
a  barrister  of  seven  years1  standing,  appointed  by 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  and  removable  by  him.  They 
were  to  have  jurisdiction  in  ordinary  cases  of  tort, ' 
or  contract  where  the  damages  claimed  did  not 
exceed  twenty  pounds ;  libel,  breach  of  promise, 
disputed  title,  and  some  other  cases  being  excepted. 
The  jurisdiction  of  these  Courts  has  since  been 
much  extended,  and  the  standard  of  their  judges 
has  been  raised.  But  the  principle  of  cheap  and 
speedy  justice  in  common  matters  of  every  day 
was  for  the  first  time  established  by  Parliament  in 
1846. 

1  Tort  means  an  actionable  wrong  not  resulting  from  any  breach  of 
agreement  between  the  parties. 


CHAPTER    II 

PALMERSTON'S  FOREIGN  POLICY 

LORD  GREY  told  Charles  Greville  in  1848  that  1846. 
Lord  John  Russell  had  promised  to  control 
Palmerston,  and  prevent  his  foreign  policy  from Powers- 
becoming  dangerous  when  the  Government  was 
formed  in  1846.1  If  Lord  John  gave  such  an 
undertaking,  he  cannot  be  said  to  have  kept  it. 
Palmerston  was  quite  as  independent  in  Lord 
John's  Cabinet  as  he  had  been  in  Lord  Melbourne's. 
On  the  10th  of  October  1846  the  Queen  of  Spain 
and  her  sister  the  Infanta  were  married  at  Madrid. 
The  Queen's  husband  was  her  cousin,  Don  Francis, 
Duke  of  Cadiz.  The  Infanta's  was  the  Duke 
of  Montpensier,  son  of  Louis  Philippe.  These 
Spanish  marriages  excited  in  England,  or  at  least 
in  the  vocal  classes  of  England,  from  the  Queen 
downwards,  a  storm  of  indignation.  They  were™ 
regarded,  and  in  fact  they  were,  a  breach  of  the 
engagement  given  by  the  King  of  the  French  and 
his  Minister,  M.  Guizot,  to  the  Queen  and  Lord 
Aberdeen  at  Chateau  d'Eu  in  1843.  The  King 
and  Guizot  then  undertook  that  the  Duke  de 
Montpensier  should  not  marry  the  Infanta  until 
the  Queen  was  married  and  had  issue.  There  is 
no  possible  justification  for  the  behaviour  of  M. 
Guizot  and  his  Sovereign.  Not  only  did  they 
break  their  words.  They  were  parties  to  a  low 

1  "  Greville  Memoirs,"  3rd  June  1848. 
45 


46    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  intrigue,  for  which  they  sacrificed  the  interests  of 
Spain  and  the  happiness  of  two  lives.  Queen 
Isabella  was  only  sixteen,  and  she  despised  her 
cousin.  It  is  certain  that  Louis  Philippe  wished 
the  future  Sovereign  of  Spain  to  be  his  grandchild, 
and  that  the  Duke  of  Cadiz  was  deliberately 
chosen  as  a  man  unlikely  to  be  a  father.  Those 
who  knew  the  young  Queen  best  were  the  most 
convinced  that  if  she  were  not  soon  provided  with 
a  husband,  she  would  provide  herself  with  a  lover. 
JBut  there  were  other  men  she  could  have  married 
with  better  prospects,  as,  for  instance,  the  brother 
of  Don  Francis,  Don  Enrique.  M.  Guizot  had 
a  great  career  behind  him,  and  his  reputation 
is  too  high  to  be  permanently  lowered  by  this 
incident.  His  conduct,  however,  especially  in  a 
man  making  such  lofty  professions  of  religion  and 
morality  as  were  made  by  him,  is  liable  to  the 
severest  censure.  He  was  apparently  inspired,  like 
his  master,  with  a  mistrust  of  Palmerston  so  intense 
that  it  blinded  him  to  the  difference  between  right 
and  wrong.  Looking  back  at  the  miserable  story 
from  this  distance  of  time,  one  can  hardly  under- 
stand how  it  affected  British  interests.  Palmerston, 
however,  was  convinced  that  it  did,  and  took  it  up 
with  characteristic  vigour.  He  even  threatened, 
without  telling  the  Prime  Minister,  to  withdraw 
the  British  Ambassador  from  Paris.  The  com- 
munication of  this  threat,  an  oral  one,  to  the 
French  Government  was  stopped  by  Lord  John, 
and  it  never  got  beyond  the  French  Ambassador, 
M.  de  Saint  Aulaire.  But  Palmerston  succeeded 
in  greatly  embittering  the  relations  of  the  two 
countries,  and  inflaming  a  quarrel  which  he  would 
have  done  better  to  allay.  The  Ambassador  at 
Paris  was  the  Marquess  of  Normanby,  who  had 
succeeded  the  first  fiord  Cowley,  the  Duke  of 
Wellington's  brother.  Lord  Normanby  showed  a 


PALMERSTON'S  FOREIGN  POLICY   47 

singular  want  of  tact,  and  went  so  far  as  to  work  1846. 
with  the  Leaders  of  the  Opposition,  Thiers  and 
Mold,  in  discrediting  the  Minister  of  the  King  to 
whom  he  was  accredited.  On  the  other  hand, 
Mr.  Bulwer,1  the  British  Envoy  at  Madrid,  was  a 
partisan  of  Prince  Leopold  of  Coburg,  Prince 
Albert's  cousin,  whose  pretensions  to  the  Queen's 
hand  infuriated  France.  Palmerston  maintained, 
with  literal  truth,  that  he  had  himself  never 
supported  Prince  Leopold's  claims.  But  he  very 
imprudently  mentioned  him  in  a  despatch  to  Mr. 
Bulwer,  and  this  was  fuel  to  the  flame.2  Louis 
Philippe  and  Guizot  had  their  way.  The  marriages 
were  duly  solemnised.  They  were  not,  as  Palmer- 
ston rashly  contended,  a  breach  of  the  Treaty  of 
Utrecht,  which  was  directed  against  the  union  of  the 
French  and  Spanish  crowns.  But  they  were  a  viola- 
tion of  a  promise,  and  they  were  infamous  in  them- 
selves. And  what  was  the  good  of  it  all  ?  The  great 
satirist  from  whom  Johnson  imitated  his  Vanity  of 
Human  Wishes  would  have  found  in  the  fruits  of 
this  paltry  knavishness  a  fine  theme  for  declamation. 
Queen  Isabella  had  several  children,  legitimate  be- 
cause born  in  wedlock,  and  one  of  them  became  King 
of  Spain  long  after  she  herself  had  been  expelled 
by  her  subjects  from  the  throne.  The  Orleanist 
dynasty,  which  was  to  extend  its  glories  through 
the  Iberian  Peninsula,  had  not  two  years  to  run. 

Sed  genus  humanum  damnat  caligo  futuri? 

Badly  as  Louis  Philippe  and  his  Minister  came 
out  of  this  transaction,  Lord  Palmerston  cannot 
be  said  to  have  come  out  of  it  well.  He  had  failed 

1  Afterwards  Sir  Henry  Bulwer  and  Lord  Bailing. 

2  In  a  public  despatch  to  Bulwer,  Palmerston  drew  up  a  list  of  avail- 
able candidates  for  Queen  Isabella's  hand,  and  unfortunately  put  Prince 
Leopold,  who  was  a  Protestant,  first.     In  a  private  letter  he  instructed 
Bulwer  to  support  not  Leopold  but  Don  Enrique,  the  candidate  of  the 
Spanish  Liberals. — Lord  Dalling's  Life  of  Palmerston,  iii.  228. 

3  But  the  darkness  of  the  future  is  the  doom  of  human   kind. — 
Juvenal,  vi.  556. 


48    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1846.  in  his  object,  which  was  to  prevent  the  marriage  of 
the  Infanta  with  the  French  King's  son,  and  he 
had  brought  the  two  great  Western  Powers  to  the 
verge  of  war  for  a  question  in  which  British 
interests  were  not  perceptibly  concerned.  His 
most  violent  measures  had  been  taken  behind  the 
back  of  the  Prime  Minister,  and  though  Lord  John 
manfully  defended  him  to  the  French  Government, 
the  relations  between  the  two  most  prominent 
members  of  the  Cabinet  had  been  severely  strained. 
Lord  Grey's  anticipations  were  realised,  though  their 
realisation  seemed  to  have  no  effect  upon  Lord  Grey. 
The  The  friendly  understanding  between  England  and 
menatnofe"  France  was  at  an  end.  For  this  untoward  result 
anl  France.  France  was  chiefly,  though  not  entirely,  to  blame, 
and  it  was  upon  France  that  the  punishment  fell. 

During  the  autumn  of  1846  disturbances 
broke  out  in  Galicia,  and  were  suppressed  with 
terrible  cruelty  by  the  Austrian  Government. 
Austria  complained  that  the  revolt  had  been 
stimulated  from  Cracow,  the  little  Republic,  or 
free  town,  on  the  Vistula,  which  alone  survived 
the  disgraceful  partition  of  Poland.  The  three 
Northern  Powers — Austria,  Russia,  and  Prussia- 
took  advantage  of  the  Galician  rising  to  suppress 
The  the  independence  of  Cracow,  which  henceforth 

extinction  _     .  *         .    •          w          «  T-I- 

of  cracow.  became  a  part  or  the  Austrian  JtLmpire.  In  doing 
so  they  plainly  and  directly  violated  the  Treaty 
of  Vienna,  younger  by  a  hundred  years  than  the 
Treaty  of  Utrecht.  It  is  possible,  though  not 
probable,  that  in  face  of  a  joint  protest  from 
England  and  France,  the  three  Powers  would  have 
receded,  and  such  a  protest  was  proposed  by 
France.  But  the  Spanish  marriages  had  occurred, 
and  Palmerston  refused  to  act  with  Guizot.  In 
reply  to  Prince  Metternich,  from  whom  the 
declaration  came  that  this  act  had  been  com- 
mitted, the  English  Minister  pointed  out  that  for 


PALMERSTON'S  FOREIGN  POLICY  49 

the  first  time  since  1814  the  Treaty  of  Vienna  had  1846. 
been  materially  altered  without  the  consent  of  all 
the  signatory  States.  In  this  despatch  Palmerston 
also  laid  down  the  wholesome  and  important 
doctrine  that  the  rights  of  small  and  large  States 
were  equally  sacred.  Whatever  may  be  thought 
of  his  conduct  in  the  negotiations  about  the 
Spanish  marriages,  no  fault  can  be  found  with 
his  answer  to  Metternich.  The  extinction  of  a 
free  State  is,  in  any  case,  an  outrage  against 
humanity,  and  in  this  case  it  was  also  a  flagrant 
violation  of  public  law.  It  was  not  the  business  of 
England  to  maintain  the  Treaty  of  Vienna  alone 
by  force.  But  to  pass  over  such  an  international 
scandal  in  silence  would  have  been  to  acquiesce  in 
wrong-doing  because  the  wrong-doers  were  strong. 
The  Emperor  Nicholas  was  believed  to  be  the 
instigator  of  this  evil  deed,  though  it  was  quite 
consistent  with  the  lifelong  policy  of  Metternich, 
and  henceforth  the  commanding  personality  of 
Nicholas  began  to  take  hold  of  the  British  imagi- 
nation as  an  enemy  of  freedom. 

The  Queen's  Speech  of  1847  was  silent  on  the  1547. 
marriage  of  the  Queen  of  Spain.  But  it  referred 
to  the  marriage  of  her  sister,  and  intimated  that 
there  had  been  a  correspondence  with  the  French 
Government  on  that  subject.  Mr.  Disraeli 
flippantly  observed  that  the  proper  course  would 
have  been  to  offer  congratulations,  and  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  said,  according  to  Greville,  that 
"  the  pother  about  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  was  all 
damned  stuff." *  Public  opinion,  however,  was 
indignant  at  Louis  Philippe's  breach  of  faith,  and 
did  not  appreciate  Mr.  Disraeli's  sarcasm.  A  more 
serious  reference  to  Cracow  was  put  into  the 
Queen's  mouth,  and  the  annexation  was  justly 
stigmatised  as  inconsistent  with  the  faith  of 

1  "Greville  Memoirs/'  15th  Feb.  1847. 
VOL.  I  E 


50    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  treaties.  Having  been  apprised  of  this  paragraph, 
the  representatives  of  the  three  Northern  Powers 
did  not  attend  the  opening  of  Parliament.  There 
the  history  of  Cracow  would  naturally  have  come 
Joseph  to  an  end.  But  Joseph  Hume,  who  had  a  fixed 
suggestion,  belief  that  the  world  could  be  governed  by  pounds, 
shillings,  and  pence,  bethought  himself  of  an  ex- 
pedient for  bringing  home  to  Russia,  at  all  events, 
the  nature  and  extent  of  her  misdeeds.  After  the 
French  war  the  Dutch  possessions  in  South  Africa 
were  sold  to  Great  Britain,  and,  as  a  consequence 
of  this  sale,  Great  Britain  gave  a  guarantee  of  a 
March*,  loan  from  Holland  to  Russia.  It  was  the  proposal 
of  Mr.  Hume  that  the  interest  on  this  loan  should 
no  longer  be  paid.  Hume  was  a  vigilant  critic 
of  the  estimates,  and  his  services  to  public  economy 
were  invaluable.  But  he  took  too  much  upon 
himself.  His  finger  was  in  every  pie  ;  he  spoke  on 
every  subject,  and  there  was  nothing  upon  which 
he  was  not  prepared  to  pronounce  an  authoritative 
opinion.  His  proposal  in  respect  of  Cracow  was 
simply  fatuous.  The  mischief  was  done,  and  could 
not  be  undone  without  war.  The  breach  of  one 
engagement  would  have  been  an  odd  remedy  for 
the  breach  of  another  with  which  it  was  totally 
unconnected,  and  the  absurdity,  as  well  as  the 
scandal,  would  have  been  heightened  by  the  fact 
that  England's  method  of  punishing  lawlessness 
was  the  appropriation  of  money  which  did  not 
belong  to  her.  On  this  point  Lord  John  Russell 
and  Sir  Robert  Peel  were  entirely  agreed.  Both 
strongly  condemned  the  annexation  of  Cracow. 
Both  deprecated  with  equal  earnestness  the  idea  of 
refusing  to  honour  a  guarantee,  and  thus  incident- 
ally, among  other  things,  throwing  doubt  upon 
our  title  to  Cape  Colony.  There  was  no  answer 
to  these  arguments,  and  Mr.  Hume's  resolution 
was  ultimately  withdrawn.  But  Lord  George 


PALMERSTON'S  FOREIGN  POLICY  51 

Bentinck  and  his  "  follower,"  Mr.  Disraeli,  could  not  1347. 
let  well  alone.     Lord  George  loudly  applauded  the  p"0^- 

__  °  1-1  •  tiomst 

pohc\r  oi  the  Northern  Powers,  which  was  lustlv^'p 

*    «  •  1  /•     1     •  l  With 

odious  to  nine-tenths  or  his  countrymen,  and  Mr.  despotism. 
Disraeli  argued,  with  a  sophistry  not  even  per- 
suasive, that  the  independence  of  Cracow  was  the 
subject  of  a  separate  provision  which,  though 
embodied  in  the  Treaty,  was  no  part  of  the  Treaty 
itself.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  what  motive 
the  pair  can  have  had  except  blind  opposition  to 
Sir  Robert  Peel.  But  Mr.  Disraeli  seldom  spoke 
without  saying  something  out  of  the  way.  After 
some  strictures  upon  the  Polish  oligarchy  which, 
though  not  strictly  relevant,  were  true,  he  added,  in 
words  never  to  be  forgotten  :  "  It  is  not  the  num- 
ber of  a  people  that  makes  a  great  nation  ;  a  great 
nation  is  a  nation  which  produces  great  men." 

A  much  more  vulnerable  part  of  Palmerston's  paimersto 
policy  than  either  Cracow  or  the  Spanish  marriages  Portugal. 
was  his  interference  with  the  affairs  of  Portugal. 
The  Queen  of  Portugal,  Donna  Maria  Pia,  was  a 
friend  and  contemporary  of  Queen  Victoria.  They 
had  known  each  other  since  they  were  children, 
and  there  was  a  strong  mutual  attachment  be- 
tween them.  In  October  1846  an  insurrection 
broke  out  in  Portugal,  not  without  grounds,  and 
the  throne  of  the  young  Queen  was  threatened. 
The  British  Government  acted  in  the  most 
peremptory  manner,  and  ordered  the  fleet  into 
the  Tagus  to  support  the  authority  of  the  Crown. 
The  Queen  of  Portugal,  thus  protected,  refused 
all  concessions  to  her  subjects,  and  the  British 
navy  was  placed  in  the  odious  position  of  sup- 
porting an  Absolutist  Government  against  its 
justly  dissatisfied  subjects.  That,  however,  to  give 
Lord  Palmerston  his  due,  was  not  his  intention. 
He  insisted  that  the  Cortes  should  be  invoked,  and 
the  Constitution  restored.  To  these  conditions  the 


52    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  Queen  submitted.  But  the  insurgents  were  either 
sceptical  or  dissatisfied  ;  and  on  the  31st  of  March 
1847  Sir  Thomas  Maitland  seized  their  ships  off 
Oporto.  Having  rendered  this  doubtful  service  to 
"our  ancient  ally,"  Lord  Palmerston  proposed  a 
conference  of  the  four  Powers  who  had  signed  the 
Quadruple  Alliance  in  1834.  Accordingly,  on  the 
21st  of  May  the  representatives  of  Great  Britain, 
Spain,  France,  and  Portugal  met  in  London.  The 
result  of  their  deliberations  was  an  agreement  that, 
besides  the  Constitutional  arrangements  already 
promised,  there  should  be  a  full  and  general  amnesty 
for  the  rebels.  In  the  hands  of  a  skilful  advocate, 
such  as  Lord  Palmerston  himself,  this  might  easily 
be  cited  as  a  triumph  of  Lord  Palmerston's  policy. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  constituent  bodies 
voted  for  Costa  Cabral,  the  intriguer  whom  it  had 
been  Palmerston's  special  object  to  exclude,  and  a 
Cabralistic  Ministry  was  formed,  though  Cabral 
was  in  exile.  Besides,  there  remained  the  question, 
what  business  we  had  to  meddle  in  the  matter  at 
all.  No  Opposition  could  well  have  let  such  a 
chance  of  attacking  a  Ministry  pass  by.  Lord 

oue  is.  Stanley  took  up  the  matter  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  made  a  very  brilliant  speech  in  favour  of  non- 
intervention, containing  a  severe  attack  upon  Lord 
Palmerston.  He  failed,  however,  to  secure  a 
majority ;  and  in  the  House  of  Commons,  after 
a  long  debate,  the  House  was  counted  out  the 
same  evening  by  the  Protectionist  whip,  Mr. 
Newdigate.  But  this  Parliamentary  victory  of 
the  Government  was  not  due  to  the  merits  of  their 
case.  There  was  dissension  among  the  Radicals, 
and  the  Tories  acted  on  no  definite  principle. 
Lord  Stanley  at  that  time  of  his  life  adopted  the 
simple  theory  that  it  is  the  business  of  an  Oppo- 
sition to  oppose.  He  never  cared  much  for 
office,  many  as  were  the  offices  he  held,  and 


PALMERSTON'S  FOREIGN  POLICY  53 

his  incurable  levity  made  him  reckless  of  con- 1347. 
sequences,  so  long  as  he  could  have  a  good  fight, 
and  let  loose  his  magnificent  oratory  at  the  ex- 
pense of  his  former  friends.  He  had  no  more 
belief  in  the  principle  of  non-intervention  than  he 
had  in  the  five  points  of  the  Charter.  He  saw  a 
good  opening,  and  he  took  it.  At  the  same  time 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  precedent  set  by  Lord 
Palmerston  upon  this  occasion  was  a  very  dangerous 
one.  Lord  John  Russell  and  Mr.  Macaulay,  on  his 
behalf  and  their  own,  laid  stress  upon  the  fact  that 
they  had  compelled  the  Queen  of  Portugal  to  grant 
reforms.  But  they  did  not,  because  they  could  not, 
explain  what  it  mattered  to  the  British  taxpayer, 
the  provider  of  the  fleet,  whether  she  granted  them 
or  not.  Consols  would  not  have  been  much  affected 
by  sympathy  with  our  ancient  ally  if  Dom  Miguel 
had  dethroned  the  Queen,  or  if  the  Queen  had 
banished  Dom  Miguel.  The  only  argument  which 
had  any  plausibility  was  that  France  and  Spain 
would  have  intervened  if  England  had  refrained. 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  however,  gave  his  unreserved 
support  to  the  Government ;  and  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  spoke  for  them  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
where  they  had  a  majority  of  nineteen.  Peel  held 
that  the  country  was  committed  by  the  Quadruple 
Alliance ;  and  the  Duke  was  affected  by  his 
memories  of  the  Peninsular  campaign. 

But  Lord  Palmerston  was  a  many-sided  man,  The  war 
and    he   could   frustrate   intervention   as  well   asderbundon" 
further  it.      He   took   the  former  course  in   the 
case   of  Switzerland,  where   there  was  a  curious 
rehearsal  on  a  small  scale  in  1847  of  the  drama 
which  convulsed  the  United  States  from  1861  to 
1865.     The  war  of  the  Sonderbund  was  a  religious 
war ;  while  the  war  in  America  was  a  moral  war. 
But  in  both  union  was  set  against  disruption,  the. 
Federation  against  the  canton  or  the  State.     The 


54    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  Sonderbund  was  a  league  of  the  Catholic  against 
the  Protestant  cantons.  The  Protestant  cantons 
were  the  majority,  and  they  wanted  to  expel  the 
Jesuits  from  Switzerland.  The  Catholic  minority 
objected,  and  formed  themselves  into  a  Secessionist 
League.  On  the  20th  of  July  the  Swiss  Diet, 
by  13  votes  to  7,  declared  the  Sonderbund  illegal. 
On  the  4th  of  September  the  Jesuits  were  expelled, 
or,  at  least,  a  decree  for  their  expulsion  was  issued. 
On  the  4th  of  November  General  Dufour,  in  com- 
mand of  the  Federal  forces,  took  the  field  against 
the  Sonderbund.  He  was  a  very  skilful  officer, 
who  knew  how  to  negotiate  as  well  as  how  to  fight ; 
and  by  the  end  of  November  the  Sonderbund  had 
submitted  to  the  inevitable  with  a  good  grace. 
Meanwhile  the  Absolutist  Powers  of  the  Con- 
tinent, especially  Austria,  had  been  urging  the 
collective  interference  of  Europe.  Palmerston, 
with  incomparable  astuteness,  postponed  the  ques- 
tion from  week  to  week,  until  it  was  too  late  to  do 
anything ;  and  at  last,  on  the  4th  of  December, 
intervention,  which  would  have  been  perfectly 
useless,  was  formally  rejected.  The  Swiss  might 
say  of  Palmerston  what  the  Romans  said  of 
Fabius — 

Unus  homo  nobis  cunctando  restituit  rem.1 

No  account  of  Lord  Palmerston's  foreign  policy 
at  this  epoch  would  be  complete  without  a  refer- 
Minto  ence  to  Lord  Minto's  Italian  mission.  This  strange 
proceeding  was  made  possible,  though  it  was  scarcely 
made  dignified,  by  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
the  time.  In  November  1847,  when  Lord  Minto 
started  on  his  travels,  Italy  was  still  what  Metternich 
called  her,  a  geographical  expression.  The  Pope 
was  a  temporal  sovereign,  and  Rome  was  only  the 

1  "One  man  by  dilatory  tactics  restored  our  prosperity." — From  a 
fragment  of  Ennius. 


PALMERSTON'S  FOREIGN  POLICY  55 

capital  of  the  Papal  States.  Florence  belonged  to  1847. 
the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany.  Milan  and  Venice 
were  Austrian.  Naples  was  the  seat  of  government 
for  the  King  of  the  Two  Sicilies.  The  King  of 
Sardinia  possessed  only  Piedmont,  Savoy,  and 
Genoa,  including  Nice,  besides  the  island  from 
which  he  took  his  title ;  and  his  capital  was  Turin. 
The  new  Pope,  Mastai  Ferretti,  Pio  Nono,  who  had 
been  elected  the  year  before,  was  supposed  to  be  a 
Liberal.  His  Liberalism,  if  it  ever  really  existed, 
was  only  skin-deep,  and  did  not  survive  two  years 
of  Pontifical  power.  But  in  1847  he  was  on  friendly 
terms  with  Charles  Albert,  the  King  of  Sardinia, 
and  at  daggers  drawn  with  Austria.  The  idea  of  a 
reforming  Pope,  though  it  turned  out  to  be  utterly 
deceptive,  was  then  much  in  vogue,  and  Lord 
Palmerston  resolved  to  make  the  most  of  it. 
There  was  no  British  embassy  at  Rome,  and  the 
state  of  the  English  law  was  sufficiently  doubtful 
to  prevent  the  Government  from  establishing  one. 
Lord  Minto,  the  Prime  Minister's  father-in-law, 
was  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  and  held  the  sinecure 
office  of  Privy  Seal.  He  received  no  diplomatic 
appointment,  but  was  instructed  to  express  equal 
friendliness  with  the  King  of  Sardinia  and  the 
Pope,  that  singular  brace  of  Liberal  allies.  He  was 
further  to  intimate  that  Austrian  aggression  upon 
Papal  territory  would  not  be  permitted.  But  his 
main  object  was  to  obtain  some  assistance  from  the 
Pope  in  the  government  of  Ireland.  Such  attempts 
have,  under  very  different  conditions,  been  made 
since,  but  they  have  always  failed.  The  Irish  are 
a  very  religious  people  ;  but  they  are  also  the  most 
political  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and,  as 
O'Connell  said,  they  take  their  religion,  not  their 
politics,  from  Rome.  Lord  Palmerston,  who  re- 
garded all  religions  with  Epicurean  impartiality, 
wanted  the  Pope  to  "  put  down  lawlessness "  by 


56    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  restraining  the  priests  who  incited  to  it.  He  also 
pressed  for  a  withdrawal  of  the  Papal  rescript 
denouncing  the  Queen's  unsectarian  colleges  at 
Belfast  and  Galway  as  godless  institutions.  But 
Pius  the  Ninth  never  withdrew  anything,  and  his 
rescript  only  echoed  the  language  of  ecclesiastical 
reaction.  Moreover,  Lord  Palmerston  himself  was 
not  in  a  conciliatory  mood.  Writing  with  his  accus- 
tomed freedom  to  a  friend  and  colleague,  he  assured 
Lord  Minto  that  public  opinion  against  the  Irish 
priests  at  home  was  exasperated  to  the  last  degree, 
and  that  nothing  would  give  the  English  people 
more  satisfaction  than  to  see  a  few  of  them  hanged. 
The  agent  of  such  a  principal  could  hardly  hope  for 
success,  and  Lord  Minto  did  not  succeed.  Lord 
Clarendon,  who  became  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland 
on  the  death  of  Lord  Bessborough  in  May  1847, 
had  a  staunch  ally  in  Dr.  Murray,  the  Roman 
Catholic  Archbishop  of  Dublin.  But  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Tuam,  Dr.  M'Hale,  was  quite  intractable  ; 
and  he  was  a  better,  or  at  least  a  more  faithful 
representative  of  the  Irish  priesthood  than  Arch- 
bishop Murray.  Both  Lord  Clarendon  and  Lord 
Palmerston,  as  well  as  Sir  Robert  Peel,  were  then 
favourable  to  more  regular  communication  with 
the  Court  of  Rome.  But  they  desired  to  use  the 
Pope  for  their  own  purposes  ;  and  if  His  Holiness 
had  not  been  capable  of  discovering  that  fact  for 
himself,  his  advisers  at  the  Vatican  were  more 
than  capable  of  finding  it  out  for  him. 


CHAPTER   III 


ON  the  19th  of  January  1847  the  Parliament  of  1347. 
1841  met  for  the  last  time.  The  date  was  earlier  The  wsh 
than  usual,  but  in  the  opinion  of  many  it  was  not fa 
so  early  as  it  ought  to  have  been.  The  circum- 
stances of  Ireland  had  been  growing  rapidly  worse 
throughout  the  previous  autumn,  and  were  now 
appalling.  Three-fourths  of  the  potato  crop  and 
one-fourth  of  the  oat  crop  had  failed.  The  oats 
were  exported ;  the  potatoes  were  the  food  of  the 
people.  The  estimated  loss  on  both  was  sixteen 
millions  sterling.  A  true  and  just  account  of  the 
situation,  written  with  an  admirable  mixture  of 
sympathy  and  intelligence,  may  be  found  in  Mr. 
Disraeli's  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck.  "  It  was 
said,"  writes  Mr.  Disraeli,  "  by  the  Royal  Commis- 
sion over  which  Lord  Devon  presided,  that  the  Irish 
people  were  the  worst  housed,  the  worst  fed,  and 
the  worst  clothed  of  any  in  Europe.  They  live  in 
mud  cabins  littered  upon  straw  ;  their  food  consists 
of  dry  potatoes,  of  which  they  are  often  obliged  to 
stint  themselves  to  one  spare  meal.  Sometimes  a 
herring  or  a  little  milk  may  afford  them  a  pleasing 
variety,  but  sometimes  also  they  are  driven  to  sea- 
weed and  to  wild  herbs.  Dwelling  in  hovels  and 
feeding  upon  roots,  they  are  clothed  in  rags.  Those 
were  the  ordinary  circumstances  of  Ireland,  and  to 
such  a  state  of  affairs  famine  was  now  added  with 

57 


58    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  all  its  attendant  horrors,  pestilence  and  death.  In 
the  southern  and  western  parts  of  the  country  the 
population  was  decimated ;  10,000  persons  at  the 
meeting  of  Parliament  had  died  in  the  Union  of 
Skibbereen,  which  numbered  100,000  souls.  Scenes 
were  enacted  worthy  of  the  page  of  Joseph  us  or 
Thucydides.  It  was  truly  and  tersely  said  by  Lord 
John  Russell  that  it  was  a  famine  of  the  thirteenth 
century  with  a  population  of  the  nineteenth.  That 
under  such  circumstances,  and  especially  in  such  a 
country,  crime  should  have  increased  is  not  remark- 
able ;  but  it  is  strange,  and  it  is  interesting,  that 
the  character  of  that  crime  should  have  altered. 
The  increase  in  offences  was  entirely  in  offences 
against  property.  Burglaries  abounded,  and  high- 
way robbery  was  almost  for  the  first  time  intro- 
duced. Agrarian  outrage  greatly  diminished  ;  the 
influence  of  the  secret  societies  died  away ;  the 
spirit  of  combination  ceased,  and  although  the 
offences  were  numerous,  there  was  no  difficulty  in 
obtaining  convictions  or  in  enforcing  the  law.  All 
of  which  shows  that  the  difficulty  of  vindicating 
the  law  in  cases  where  the  tenure  or  occupation  of 
land  is  concerned  does  not  arise  from  any  inherent 
repugnance  to  order  and  justice  in  the  hearts  of  the 
Irish  multitude."1  There  are  some  sentences  in 
this  striking  passage  which  may  have  been  written 
to  justify  the  author's  vote  against  the  Coercion 
Bill  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  there  are  others  which 
had  ceased  to  be  true  before  many  months  were 
over.  But  most  of  it  has  a  permanent  value,  and 
makes  one  doubt  whether  even  Mr.  Gladstone,  who 
did  so  much  for  them,  understood  the  Irish  people 
so  thoroughly  as  Mr.  Disraeli,  who  never  did 
anything  for  them  at  all. 

The  pro-          At  the  beginning  of  this  session  Lord  George 
pacrtyn  *     Bentinck,  with  his  Protectionist  followers,  including 

1  Disraeli's  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck,  pp.  350-361. 


THE  IRISH  FAMINE  59 

Mr.  Disraeli,  crossed  the  floor  of  the  House,  and  1847. 
sat  opposite  to  the  Government.  Between  the 
Protectionist  leaders  in  the  two  Houses  there  was 
no  cordiality.  Lord  Stanley  neither  liked  nor 
respected  Lord  George  Bentinck.  But  he  had 
for  the  moment  to  work  with  him.  Lord  John 
Russell,  as  Prime  Minister,  took  his  full  share,  and 
perhaps  rather  more  than  his  share,  of  Parliamentary 
business.  He  did  not  forget  that  he  was  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury  as  well  as  Premier,  and 
though  his  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  was  an 
abler  man  than  Peel's,  Sir  Charles  Wood  had  no 
more  independent  authority  than  had  Mr.  Goulburn. 
But  there  was  a  power  behind  the  throne.  On 
the  15th  of  January  1847  Mr.  Pemberton  of  the 
Treasury  wrote  to  Mr.  Cardwell :  "  If  you  were  to 
come  over  to  the  Treasury  you  would  not  know 
yourself.  Trevelyan  is  First  Lord,  and  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  has  a  new  room,  with  four  private 
secretaries  and  three  commissariat  clerks,  and  the 
whole  has  been  left  to  him."  Mr.,  afterwards  Sir, 
Charles  Trevelyan,  was  then  and  for  many  years 
afterwards  Assistant  Secretary  to  the  Treasury, 
upon  which  Ireland  at  that  moment  depended.  He 
was  a  man  of  great  ability,  of  untiring  industry,  and 
of  inflexible  purpose.  In  India  he  had  braved  un- 
popularity and  official  censure  by  standing  up  against 
corruption  in  high  places.  Mr.  Pemberton  doubt- 
less exaggerates  his  influence,  and  he  must  not  be 
held  responsible  for  the  policy  pursued.  His  Indian 
experience,  valuable  as  it  was,  had  its  drawbacks 
when  applied  to  a  totally  different  population. 

Lord  Rosebery  pleads  on  behalf  of  Pitt  that 
nobody  could  have  been  expected  to  anticipate  the 
enormous  magnitude  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Burke  anticipated  it,  and  so  did  Fox,  though  their 
estimates  may  have  been  in  other  respects  errone-  starvation 
ous.  The  Irish  famine  of  1847  baffled  all  calcula-  to  IreLind- 


60    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  tions,  even  O' Conn  ell's,  and  it  is  hardly  fair  to  blame 
the  Government  for  not  being  wiser  than  the  whole 
world.  Their  measures  were  not  so  much  inadequate 
as  unwise.  The  relief  works,  as  we  have  seen,  were 
a  failure,  and  the  Lord-Lieutenant  took  upon  him- 
self to  go  beyond  the  provisions  of  the  law.  Parlia- 
ment readily  indemnified  him.  All  classes  in  Great 
Britain,  as  well  as  in  Ireland,  were  animated  by 
the  single  desire  to  save  the  Irish  peasantry  from 
starvation,  and  from  the  deadly  fever  caused  by 
famine.  The  city  of  London  showed  its  customary 
munificence.  Subscriptions  poured  in  from  every 
part  of  England,  and  from  most  parts  of  Europe,  in- 
cluding Turkey.  The  Society  of  Friends  organised 
a  deputation  of  succour,  in  reference  to  which  Mr. 
Cobden  truly  said  that  in  braving  the  pestilence 
bred  by  want  its  members  displayed  as  much  hero- 
ism as  any  soldier  on  a  forlorn  hope,  though  they 
were  not  mentioned  in  despatches,  and  received  no 
reward.1  Lord  John  Russell  had  to  tell  the  House 
of  Commons  that  half  a  million  men,  representing 
four  million  souls,  were  employed  in  road-making. 
"A  nation,"  as  Mr.  Disraeli  put  it,  "breaking 
stones  upon  the  roads."  The  wages  paid  were  about 
£160,000  a  week.  The  cost,  which  was  largely 
exceeded,  Lord  John  estimated  at  £7,000,000.  For 
the  administration  of  these  funds  there  were  500 
pay  clerks,  nearly  3000  check  clerks,  and  about 
7000  overseers.  Lord  Bessborough  imposed  task 
work  as  a  test  for  relief.  But  the  wages  were 
higher  than  could  be  earned  elsewhere,  and  farmers 
left  their  land  to  receive  famine  pay  from  the 
Government.  Labourers  were  taken  away  from 

1  "  In  the  midst  of  a  scene  which  no  field  of  battle  ever  equalled  in 
danger,  in  the  number  of  its  slain,  or  the  sufferings  of  the  surviving, 
these  brave  men  moved  as  calm  and  undismayed  as  though  they  had 
been  in  their  own  houses  "  (Morley's  Life  of  Cobden,  ii.  140).  One  of 
them  was  William  Edward  Forster,  afterwards  member  for  Bradford, 
Vice-President  of  the  Council  and  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland. 


THE  IRISH  FAMINE  61 

the  harvest  both  in  England  and  Ireland,  so  that  1347. 
in  Great  Britain  there  was  a  scarcity  of  labour. 
The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  confessed  that 
the  Labour  Rate  Act  had  broken  down.  Although 
Lord  John  Russell  protested  that  it  was  impossible 
for  the  Government  to  feed  the  people,  they  had 
to  make  the  attempt.  Total  and  immediate  repeal 
had  not  been  carried  in  1846.  There  was  still  a 
4s.  duty  on  imported  corn,  and  even  after  1849, 
when  the  full  effect  of  the  repeal  was  to  be  seen, 
there  remained  a  Is.  duty,  which  was  not  taken 
off  for  twenty  years.  The  4s.  duty  was  now  suspensory 

JJ1.1  J  J.-L      measures. 

suspended  by  general  consent,  and  so  were  the 
navigation  laws,  which  interfered  with  the  bringing 
of  supplies  by  foreign  ships.  A  proposal  for  re- 
claiming waste  lands,  which  meant  bogs,  was 
abandoned  by  the  advice  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Mr. 
Disraeli,  writing  in  a  spirit  of  commendable  fair- 
ness to  the  Whig  Government,  points  out  that 
terrible  as  was  the  death-rate  of  1847  in  Ireland, 
which  mounted  up  to  100  a  day,  every  effort  was 
made  to  cope  with  it  when  once  the  gravity  of  the 
situation  was  realised,  and  that  if  thousands  died 
hundreds  of  thousands  were  saved  from  death. 
Neither  Lord  John  Russell  nor  Sir  Charles  Wood 
were  by  nature  sympathetic.  But  Lord  John  was 
a  statesman,  and  Sir  Charles  was  the  most  con- 
scientious of  public  servants.  They  did  what  they 
could,  and,  given  the  circumstances  of  the  two 
countries,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  Govern- 
ment could  have  done  more.  They  recognised 
that  the  Irish  famine  was  an  imperial  calamity,  and 
that  part  at  least  of  the  burden  must  be  distributed 
over  the  taxpayers  of  the  United  Kingdom.  They 
therefore  proposed  that  when  an  instalment  of  the 
famine  debt  fell  due  the  whole  of  that  instalment 
should  be  wiped  out  upon  half  of  it  being  paid, 
though  the  bulk  of  the  debt  would  be  retained, 


62    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  and  was  retained  until  Mr.  Gladstone  extended  the 

income-tax  to  Ireland.     The  test  of  labour,  which 

had  failed,  was  removed,  and  relief  was  given  simply 

other     to  destitution.     A  permanent  change  (if  a  change 

measures  ,  .A  ,        .        ru        T    •    i_     T» 

of  relief,  can  be  permanent)  was  made  in  the  Irish  Foor 
Law,  which  was  assimilated  to  the  English  Act  of 
1834  by  the  allowance  of  out -door  relief.  To 
lessen  the  strain  upon  the  available  sources  of  corn 
the  use  of  sugar  in  brewing  was  for  the  first  time 
permitted.  This  salutary  application  of  Free  Trade 
was  no  mere  device  for  the  moment.  It  had,  and 
still  has,  important  and  beneficial  consequences  in 
the  encouragement  which,  aided  by  science,  it  gives 
to  light  and  wholesome  beer. 

Lord  John  Russell  defended  himself  with  much 
eloquence  and  power  for  not  having  undertaken  by 
gigantic  subsidies  to  feed  a  starving  people.  If  he 
had  done  it,  no  defence  would  have  been  required. 
But  it  is  almost  certain  that  he  would  have  failed, 
and  then  the  state  of  Ireland  would  have  been 
worse  than  ever.  Mr.  Disraeli  puts  this  point  with 
a  lucidity  which  cannot  be  excelled.  "  When,"  he 
says,  "a  Minister  enters  the  market,  all  private 
merchants  withdraw;  they  cannot  compete  with 
a  rival  who  seeks  no  profit  in  his  transactions ;  and 
though  he  thus  appears  to  assume  the  advantageous 
position  of  a  purchaser  without  contest,  a  dealer 
who  has  undertaken  the  responsibility  of  feeding  a 
nation  has,  in  reality,  no  option.  Prices  therefore 
rise,  and  considerably.  But  this,  though  a  great, 
is  not  the  chief  evil.  Commerce  is  not  a  mere 
affair  of  gross  purchase ;  it  is  a  pursuit  of  skill,  of 
traditionary  means,  of  local  knowledge  and  organ- 
ised connection.  The  employment  of  capital  must 
be  combined  with  all  these  incidents  to  render 
commerce  not  merely  profitable,  but  competent  to 
supply  a  demand.  The  imports  of  the  Government 
would  therefore  not  only  be  expensive,  but  they 


THE  IRISH  FAMINE  63 

would  be  scanty.  The  Government  would  have  1347 
to  pay  more  for  a  less  quantity  than  they  require."  1 
Mr.  Disraeli  had  not  sat  behind  Peel  for  nothing. 
He  might  call  himself  a  follower  of  Lord  George 
Bentinck.  He  was  at  heart  and  by  conviction  a 
Peelite.  This  did  not,  however,  prevent  him  from 
supporting  Lord  George's  extravagant  proposal  to 
squander  sixteen  millions  of  public  money  in  Plan 
making  Irish  railways  which,  as  the  event  proved, 
could  perfectly  well  be  made  by  private  enterprise. 
Lord  John  Russell's  apologetic  speech  had  been 
generally  admired  by  foes  as  well  as  by  friends, 
and  by  no  one  more  than  by  the  Protectionist 
Leader.  The  two  men  were  old  acquaintances, 
though  they  had  little  in  common,  and  their  "  noble 
friendliness"  annoyed  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who  cared 
more  for  such  personal  matters  than  a  great  man 
should.  Lord  George  was  allowed  to  bring  in  his 
Bill  on  the  4th  of  February.  To  let  it  go  further 
was  impossible.  Lord  George  Bentinck's  speech 
in  introducing  it  was  his  best,  and  may  be  studied 
in  Hansard  by  those  who  still  feel  an  interest  in 
his  singular  career.  Before  the  second  reading, 
Lord  John  summoned  his  followers  and  told  them 
plainly  that  he  could  not  retain  his  position  if  the 
financial  affairs  of  the  country  were  taken  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  Government,  The  Bill  was 
rejected  on  the  second  reading  by  a  very  large 
majority.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  in  opposing  it,  enun- 
ciated in  clear  terms  the  fundamental  principle,  so 
often  forgotten  before  and  since,  that  public  credit 
is  public  money,  and  that  whatever  diminishes  the 
borrowing  power  impairs  the  material  resources  of 
the  State.  The  prospects  of  the  measure  were 
not  improved  by  the  appearance  of  Mr.  George 
Hudson's  name  on  the  back  of  it.  The  once 
notorious,  now  forgotten,  "Railway  King,"  then 

1  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck,  p.  361. 


64    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  member  for  Sunderland,  and  Lord  Mayor  of 
York,  had  the  assurance  to  tell  the  House  of 
Commons  that  he  was  quite  satisfied  with  the 
throne  on  which  he  sat.1  So  far  the  Government 
had  triumphed.  But  Lord  George  Bentinck's 
turn  was  to  come.  To  go  tiger-hunting  with  Sir 
Charles  Wood  involved  other  perils  besides  the 
tiger.  April  was  not  over  before  that  vigilant  and 
consistent  guardian  of  the  public  purse  applied  to 
the  House  for  a  loan  of  six  hundred  thousand 
pounds  to  a  couple  of  Irish  railways.  This  was 
too  much  for  Peel,  who  opposed  the  loan  with 
civility,  though  not  without  contempt.  Lord 
George,  with  unusual  moderation,  patted  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  on  the  back,  but 
his  patronage  must  have  been  more  galling  than 
Sir  Robert's  disapproval.  The  motion  was  carried, 
because  criticism  was  almost  put  to  silence  by  the 
state  of  Ireland.  Yet  it  was  not  two  months  since 
Lord  John  Russell  had  clearly  demonstrated  that  of 
the  money  spent  on  making  a  railway  only  one-fourth 
was  paid  in  wages,  and  that  it  was  not  in  the  famine- 
stricken  districts  where  lines  were  most  required. 

The  shadow  of  Irish  misery  was  over  all 
politics,  especially  financial  politics.  Sir  Charles 
An  wsh  Wood's  first  Budget  was  an  almost  exclusively 
a  get  Irish  one.  He  proposed  to  borrow  eight  millions 
in  aid  of  the  sufferers,  and  even  Mr.  Hume  did  not 
object.  It  is  strange  and  •  significant  that  in  those 
dark  days,  destined  to  become  ere  long  still 
darker,  Lord  John  should  have  described  Ireland 
as  not  over-populated.  The  population  of  Ireland 
was  then  about  eight  millions.  It  is  now  less 
than  five.  After  the  famine  the  tide  of  emigra- 
tion set  in  full  and  strong  to  the  United  States. 

1  Hudson  was  at  that  time  believed  to  be  a  millionaire.  But  he 
failed  soon  afterwards  in  discreditable  circumstances,  and  died  a 
pauper  after  living  on  charity. 


successor. 


THE  IRISH  FAMINE  65 

Economists  regarded  this  as  a  wholesome  move- 1847. 
ment,   which  deserved    sympathy  and    assistance. 
How   disastrous   were   its    political   consequences 
every  Englishman  and  every  American  knows. 

While  the  Irish  famine  was  at  its  height,  the  Death  ot 
titular   head   of  the    Irish    Government,  and   the  borough8" 
greatest  of  living  Irishmen,  died  within  a  few  days 
of  each  other.      Lord  Bessborough  was  a  party 
manager  rather  than  a  statesman.     In  the  House 
of  Commons,  as  Lord  Duncannon,  he  had  been  a 
perfect  whip.    A  genial,  popular  Irish  gentleman,  he 
was  deeply  and  universally  respected  in  his  native 
country.    His  successor  belonged  to  a  very  different  HI. 

f  1      /"1 1  1  111!**  *"""»' 

type.  Lord  Clarendon  was  a  much  abler  adminis- 
trator than  Lord  Bessborough.  He  was  a  statesman 
of  the  good  old  Whig  type,  high-minded,  public- 
spirited,  and  supercilious.  He  liked  Catholics  the 
better  the  more  they  resembled  Protestants,  and 
his  idea  of  an  Irish  patriot  was  an  Anglicised 
Irishman.  He  accepted  the  Viceroyalty  on  the 
understanding  that  the  office  was  to  be  speedily 
abolished,  and  a  Secretaryship  of  State  for  Ireland 
created  in  its  place.  This  was  a  favourite  project 
of  Lord  John's,  but  he  was  never  able  to  carry  it 
out.  Daniel  O'Connell  died  at  Genoa  on  his  way  Death  of 
to  Rome  on  the  15th  of  May  1847,  aged  seventy- 
two.  He  had  out-lived  his  power,  and  his  fame 
was  not  revived  for  many  years  after  his  death. 
He  had  almost  retired  from  politics,  and  his  last 
speech  in  Parliament,  delivered  on  the  9th  of 
February,  was  a  pathetic  plea  for  the  starving 
victims  of  the  famine.  No  reference  to  his  death 
was  made  in  the  illustrious  Assembly  where  he 
had  been  for  sixteen  years  so  prominent  a  figure. 
Young  Ireland  had  broken  away  from  him,  as 
young  England  broke  away  from  Peel.  The  best 
and  most  brilliant  part  of  his  career  ended  with  the 
achievement  of  Catholic  Emancipation  in  1829. 

VOL.  I  F 


66    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  That  was  largely  his  doing,  and  his  name  should 
have  been  included  in  Peel's  celebrated  list.1  His 
efforts  for  the  repeal  of  the  Union  entirely  failed, 
and  he  was  never  trusted  nor  understood  by  the 
English  people.  He  had  few  of  their  virtues  and 
none  of  their  vices.  Neither  his  religion  nor  his 
morality  was  theirs.  Yet  he  wished  to  conciliate 
them,  and  he  rendered  them  a  memorable  service 
by  his  persistent  advocacy  of  Free  Trade. 

1  "  The  credit  belongs  to  others,  and  not  to  me.  It  belongs  to  Mr. 
Fox,  to  Mr.  Grattan,  to  Mr.  Plunket,  to  gentlemen  opposite,  and  to 
an  illustrious  and  right  honourable  friend  of  mine  who  is  now  no  more 
[Canning]." — Peel's  speech  on  the  second  reading  of  the  Catholic 
Emancipation  Bill,  Collected  Speeches,  i.  742. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE 

THE  Queen  and  Prince  Albert  of  Saxe-Coburg  1347. 
had  now  been  married  for  six  years.  They  had 
five  children.  Their  Court  was  a  model  of  decorum,  The  court 
and  their  domestic  relations  were  perfect.  The 
Queen  performed  all  the  duties  of  State  with 
the  most  conscientious  punctuality.  The  Prince 
was  zealous  in  the  encouragement  of  literature, 
science,  and  art.  Yet  they  were  extremely  un- 
popular, as  a  glance  at  the  chief  comic  paper  of 
those  days,  and  of  these  days,  will  show.  Prince 
Albert's  early  death,  an  excellent  clearer  of 
ill  fame,  obliterated  the  memory  of  his  real  or 
imaginary  faults,  and  long  before  the  close  of  her 
unparalleled  reign  Queen  Victoria  had  established 
a  reputation  such  as  no  sovereign  before  her 
enjoyed.  But  in  1847  they  were  both  regarded 
with  jealous  suspicion,  and  to  say  a  word  for  the 
Prince  outside  a  limited  circle  was  to  incur  the  Prince 
suspicion  of  snobbishness.  Every  penny  voted  by  popularity.' 
Parliament  for  any  purpose  connected  with  the 
Court  was  grudged,  and  the  two  chiefs  of  English 
society  were  represented  by  Punch  as  importunate 
beggars.  For  the  Queen  herself  there  was  a  sort 
of  involuntary  respect,  and,  if  she  could  have 
married  an  Englishman,  she  would  have  anticipated 
by  many  years  the  loyal  devotion  which  she  after- 
wards came  to  inspire.  But  the  British  public 

67 


68    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  could  not  forgive  Prince  Albert  for  being  a  German. 
Nor  did  his  tastes  commend  themselves  to  a 
generation  whose  real  hero  was  Lord  Palmerston. 
The  Prince  neither  raced  nor  gambled.  He  was 
"unredeemed  by  a  single  vice."  Though  he 
occasionally  shot  pheasants,  his  tastes  were  liter- 
ary, artistic,  and  musical.  He  was  even  known 
to  sing,  and  to  play  the  piano.  He  admired  and 
appreciated  Italian  Masters  who  in  England  at 
that  time  were  almost  unknown.  These  accom- 
plishments would  now  be  regarded  as  highly 
honourable  and  meritorious.  They  were  then 
thought  to  be  undignified  and  effeminate.  A 
more  respectable  ground  for  the  dislike  and  dis- 
trust of  the  Queen's  husband  was  his  interference 
The  Prince  with  politics.  Sir  Theodore  Martin's  elaborate 
and  authoritative  biography  proves  that  in  a 
delicate  and  difficult  position  the  Prince  always 
did  his  duty  as  he  conceived  it  both  to  the  country 
and  to  the  Queen.  But  he  was  not  an  English- 
man, and  he  could  not  make  himself  one.  Under 
the  British  Constitution  he  was  nobody,  and  even 
the  Queen  found  herself  unable  to  give  him  social 
precedence  over  their  own  son.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  he  was  a  Mayor  of  the  Palace,  a  personal  rather 
than  a  constitutional  power.  The  Queen  consulted 
him  about  everything,  and  placed  absolute  reliance 
upon  his  judgment.  He  was  intensely  interested 
in  politics,  especially,  as  was  natural,  in  foreign 
affairs.  He  saw  all  the  official  papers  ;  he  knew  all 
the  secrets  of  the  Cabinet ;  he  was  present  at  the 
most  confidential  interviews  between  the  Queen 
and  her  Ministers.  He  even  altered  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  despatches,  though  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that 
Lord  Palmerston  usually  altered  them  back  again. 
All  this  was  unavoidable.  The  Queen's  husband 
could  not  be  turned  out  of  the  room,  nor  could 
the  Queen  be  prevented  from  telling  him  whatever 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE  69 

was  in  her  mind.  But  it  was  an  anomalous  state  1847 
of  things,  and  one  which  the  British  Constitution 
does  not  recognise  at  all.  It  was  authority  with- 
out responsibility,  influence  without  restraint.  Yet 
few  men  could  have  discharged  such  functions  so 
irreproachably  as  the  Prince.  He  had  an  old  head 
upon  young  shoulders.  He  was  grave,  thoughtful, 
and  prudent.  But,  as  Macaulay  says  of  Notting- 
ham, he  held  the  prerogative  as  high  as  he  decently 
could.  Like  George  the  Third,  who  was  a  German, 
although  he  gloried  in  the  name  of  Briton,  Prince 
Albert  wished  to  see  the  Crown  independent  of 
parties,  and  asserting  its  ancient  rights.  He 
detested  Disraeli.  But  it  is  not  impossible  that  if 
he  had  survived  Palmerston,  he  might  have  found 
that  incomparable  courtier  a  pliant  instrument  of 
his  designs.  With  such  men  as  Russell  and 
Palmerston  the  Prince  could  not  hope  to  do  much, 
except  to  set  them  against  each  other,  and  that  he 
did.  But  he  gave  them  an  amount  of  advice  which 
they  neither  expected  nor  desired,  and  much  of  it 
was  exceedingly  good.  The  fact  is  that  the  Prince's 
own  instincts,  both  in  politics  and  in  religion,  were 
thoroughly  Liberal.  His  absolutist  tendencies  were 
derived  from  Baron  Stockmar,  a  professor  of  the 
statesmanship  which  can  be  learned  from  books. 
Whiggery  he  hated,  because  it  made  a  puppet  of 
the  Crown,  and  Lord  John  was  a  typical  Whig. 
Yet  in  some  respects  Lord  John,  though  no 
courtier,  was  preferable  to  Sir  Robert,  who  would 
tolerate  no  interference  from  any  quarter  whatso- 
ever. 

On  the  27th  of  February  Prince  Albert  was  The 
elected  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Cambridge 
in  succession  to  the  Duke  of  Northumberland. 
When  Dr.  Whewell,  the  famous  Master  of  Trinity, 
conveyed  to  His  Royal  Highness  a  Memorial 
requesting  him  to  stand,  the  Prince  accepted  the 


70    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  invitation  on  the  understanding  that  there  would 
be  no  contest.  But  a  contest  there  was.  Lord 
Powis  came  forward,  and  the  Prince  then  wished 
to  withdraw.  This,  however,  his  supporters 
earnestly  requested  him  not  to  do,  and  on  the 
advice  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who  should  on  strict 
Constitutional  principles,  not  being  a  Minister,  have 
declined  to  give  it,  he  went  to  the  poll.  His 
majority  was  not  large,  and  the  University  was 
bitterly  reproached  for  its  alleged  lack  of  independ- 
ence. Yet  if  the  personal  qualifications  of  the  two 
candidates  were  alone  regarded,  the  Prince  was 
certainly  the  better  man.  He  was  studious,  highly 
cultivated,  and  well  able  to  follow  with  intelligence 
the  progress  of  science,  for  which  the  mathematical 
training  of  Cambridge  has  done  so  much.  Lord 
Powis's  contribution  to  the  sum  of  human  endeavour 
was  a  successful  resistance  to  the  union  of  two 
Welsh  dioceses,  Bangor  and  St.  Asaph.  He  was 
brought  out  partly  as  a  rebuke  to  the  polyprag- 
matic  officiousness  of  Dr.  Whewell,  and  partly  as  a 
protest  against  the  government  of  the  backstairs. 
The  purity  of  Prince  Albert's  motives  is  unquestion- 
able, and  he  suffered  from  not  being  able  to  defend 
himself  in  public.  But  Englishmen,  considering 
their  history,  are  not  to  be  blamed  for  regarding 
with  disfavour  a  position  for  which  there  had  been 
no  nominal  parallel  since  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne, 
and  no  real  parallel  at  all. 

Prince  Albert  had  been  severely  censured  in 
some  quarters  for  attending  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  sitting  under  the  gallery,  when  Sir  Robert 
Peel  expounded  his  policy  of  Free  Trade.  This  is  a 
good  illustration  of  the  captious  criticism  to  which 
he  was  subject.  He  was  not  the  Sovereign,  his 
presence  did  not  interrupt  a  debate,  and  though 
he  notoriously  sympathised  with  the  Minister,  the 
fact  can  hardly  have  turned  a  single  vote  in  the 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE  71 

House  of  Commons.  In  matters  where  the  pre- 1347 
rogative  of  the  Crown  was  not  directly  concerned 
the  Prince  was  what  would  even  now  be  called  a  Th 
Liberal,  and  he  had  a  genuine  zeal  for  social  reform, 
Philanthropic  institutions  found  in  him  an  active 
and  a  generous  patron,  while  he  supported  all 
schemes  which  tended  to  raise  the  condition  of 
the  labouring  classes.  The  year  1847  was  one 
of  such  deep  and  dire  distress  that  it  softened 
men's  hearts,  inclining  them  to  deeds  of  mercy 
and  benevolence.  The  Highlands  and  Islands  of 
Scotland  suffered  only  less  severely  than  Ireland. 
Even  in  England  the  price  of  corn  rose  to  a 
hundred  and  two  shillings  a  quarter.  If  the 
harvest  had  not  been  a  good  one,  the  sufferings 
of  the  poor  would  have  been  frightful.  In  the 
midst  of  all  this  hardship  and  privation,  if  not  on 
account  of  it,  Parliament  passed  a  most  useful  and 
humane  Bill.  This  was  the  Factory  Act,  which 
limited  the  hours  of  labour  for  women  and  children 
in  factories  to  ten  hours  a  day.  The  Bill  was 
introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons  by  Mr. 
Fielden,  member  for  Lancashire,  but  its  real  author 
was  Lord  Ashley,  one  of  the  purest  and  noblest 
characters  on  the  political  stage.  Except  that  his 
piety  was  a  trifle  too  ostentatious,  and  that  for  a 
good  Christian  he  was  a  thought  too  proud  of  his 
rank,  Lord  Ashley,  afterwards  Earl  of  Shaftesbury, 
might  well  be  called  faultless  from  a  moral  point 
of  view.  Intellectually,  no  doubt,  he  was  narrow, 
holding  that  evangelical  religion  was  the  only  true 
one,  and  he  would  not  have  hesitated  to  pronounce 
the  damnation  of  either  the  first  Lord  Shaftesbury 
or  the  third.  But  he  led  a  long  and  consistent 
life  of  laborious  self-denial,  devoted  to  the  spiritual 
and  material  welfare  of  his  fellow-creatures.  He 
was  never  rich,  and  he  always  gave  away  more 
than  he  could  afford.  His  powers  of  speech  were 


72    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  remarkable,  and  there  was  no  better  chairman  of 
a  public  meeting.  He  had  a  stern  authoritative 
manner,  which  harmonised  more  with  the  austerity 
of  his  faith  than  with  the  beneficence  of  his  aims. 
He  had  made  the  subject  of  a  ten  hours'  day  his 
own,  and,  in  or  out  of  Parliament,  he  gave  his  best 
energies  to  the  cause.  Having  been  elected  in 
1841  as  a  Protectionist,  and  having  been  converted 
in  1846  to  Free  Trade,  his  high  and  sensitive  honour 
led  him  to  resign  his  seat  for  the  county  of  Dorset, 
and  he  was  thus  a  private  individual  when  his 
Bill  passed.  No  measure  could  have  more  fitly 
inaugurated  Barry's  and  Pugin's  new  Houses  of 
Parliament,  which  were  used  for  the  first  time  this 
year.1  The  ground  had  been  prepared  by  others 
besides  Lord  Ashley.  Mrs.  Browning's  "Cry  of 
the  Children,"  whatever  may  be  thought  of  it  as  a 
poem,  had  by  its  pathos  and  sincerity  appealed  to 
The  Govern- the  conscience  of  the  nation.  The  Government 
divided,  were  divided  on  the  subject.  The  Prime  Minister 
and  the  Home  Secretary  voted  in  favour  of  the 
Bill.  The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  voted 
against  it.  It  filled  Sir  James  Graham,  as  did 
most  public  events  of  his  time,  with  dismal  appre- 
hensions for  the  future.  We  were  to  be  ruined  by 
the  competition  of  foreign  workmen,  who  required 
no  leisure,  so  long  as  they  could  have  food  and 
sleep.  It  was  gravely  argued  that  women  and 
children  ought  not  to  be  protected  because  then- 
protection  would  involve  a  shortening  of  hours  for 
men.  The  assumption  was  correct.  The  con- 
sequence followed.  But  the  argument  is  absurd. 
That  Parliament  should  not  directly  curtail  the 
labour  of  men  is  an  intelligible  doctrine.  That  it 
should  not  interfere  with  the  labour  of  women  and 
children  for  fear  of  the  effect  upon  men  is  nonsense, 

1  Only  the  House  of  Lords  was  actually  occupied  in  1847.     The  new 
House  of  Commons  was  not  ready  for  use  till  1862. 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE  73 

and  to  state  the  proposition  is  to  refute  it.     All  1347. 
the  great  and  splendid  services  which  John  Bright  opposition 

J*   .     .  m_.  rr*  fo         of  John 

rendered  his  country  cannot  enace  the  memory  of  Brisht; 
the  speeches  he  made  against  this  Bill.  They  were 
inspired  not  by  any  broad  view  of  economic  policy, 
but  by  a  tradesman's  jealousy  of  restrictions  upon 
his  trade.  It  is  certain  that  Lord  George  Bentinck 
and  others  supported  the  Bill  because  they  wished 
to  revenge  themselves  upon  the  manufacturers  for 
abolishing  Protection.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
is  equally  true  that  members  of  the  Anti-Corn 
Law  League  had  called  upon  the  workmen  to  go 
for  Free  Trade  first,  and  had  promised  them  shorter 
hours  afterwards.  Sir  Robert  Peel  opposed  the 
Bill  for  reasons  very  different  from  Mr.  Bright's.  In 
the  case  of  colonial  sugar  Sir  Robert  did  not  carry 
his  Free  Trade  far  enough.  In  the  case  of  the  Ten 
Hours  Bill  he  carried  it  too  far,  or  rather  applied 
it  where  it  had  no  legitimate  application.  He 
chose  to  assume  that  a  ten  hours'  day  would  mean  °*  M*  _ 

.  r  i  Robert  PeeL 

less  production,  and  therefore  lower  wages,  than  a 
day  of  twelve  hours.  The  contrary  proved  to  be 
the  case.  All  work  and  no  play  makes  an  unpro- 
ductive labourer.  Wages  did  not  fall  in  conse- 
quence of  the  Act,  nor  did  production  diminish. 
But  the  health  of  the  working  population  was 
improved,  and  with  their  health  their  morals.  Sir 
Robert  Peel  was  absorbed  by  the  one  idea,  perfectly 
sound  in  itself,  that  high  wages  were  the  means  of 
providing  workmen  with  opportunities  for  using 
their  spare  time.  But  what  if  he  has  no  spare  time 
to  use  ?  In  the  House  of  Lords,  as  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  Ministers  took  opposite  sides.  The 
bishops  did  themselves  honour,  and  increased  the 
influence  of  the  Church,  by  giving  a  solid  support 
to  the  Bill.  Most  of  them  voted  for  the  repeal  of 
the  corn  laws.  They  were  less  reactionary  then 
than  they  had  been  before,  and  afterwards  became 


74    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  again.      The  Bill  had  now  passed  the  Houses  of 

Parliament.     It  had  still  to  pass  the  Courts  of  Law. 

National  ln  1847  a  modest  but  a  not  unimportant  step 

education.  .Jr.  i 

was  taken  towards  the  systematic  education  ot  the 
people.  On  the  29th  of  April  Lord  John  Russell 
explained  his  plan  for  defraying  from  the  taxes 
one-third  of  the  money  required  for  elementary 
teaching.  The  immediate  sum  for  which  he  asked 
was  only  £100,000.  But  provision  was  taken  for 
anything  up  to  two  millions,  if  the  amount  of 
private  subscriptions  justified  it.  This  was  not 
the  first  vote  for  education.  The  House  of 
Commons  had  granted  money  for  the  purpose 
since  1835.  Now,  however,  the  system  was  to  be 
automatic,  the  grant  increasing  as  the  subscrip- 
tions increased.  Almost  the  whole  of  the  grant 
Noncon.  was  to  be  received  by  church  schools.  Most  Non- 
opposition,  conformists,  except  the  Wesley ans,  objected  to  the 
Exclusion  endowment  of  denominational  schools.  The  Roman 
catholics.  Catholics  were  prevented  from  obtaining  their  share 
by  the  fact  that  they  did  not  use  the  Authorised 
Version  of  the  Scriptures.  Peel  strongly  urged 
that  they  should  be  included.  Otherwise  he 
supported  the  Government,  and  pleaded,  with  a 
religious  fervour  he  very  seldom  exhibited,  the 
sacred  duty  of  teaching  children  the  truth.  Lord 
John's  proposals  were  resisted  on  principle  by 
Roebuck,  Bright,  and  other  Radicals,  because 
education  was  not  the  business  of  the  State.  A 
State  which  does  not  make  education  its  busi- 
ness will  forfeit  its  business  to  States  which  do. 
Macaulay,  in  a  speech  of  great  power  and  beauty, 
declared  that  the  schoolmaster  was  a  surer  guardian 
of  life  and  property  than  the  policeman  or  the 
judge.  The  resolutions  were  carried  by  an  enor- 
mous majority,  and  the  House,  with  almost  as  near 
an  approach  to  unanimity,  rejected  the  proposal 
of  a  conscience  clause.  At  the  same  time  with 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE  75 

these  strictly  sectarian  resolutions  was  passed  the  1347. 
Bill   creating    the    Diocese    of    Manchester,    and  JnJ^J1 
establishing  the  principle  that  a  bishop  need  notchester 
necessarily  sit  in  the  House  of  Lords.1 

The  reform  of  the  army  was  first  seriously 
undertaken  in  the  last  session  of  this  Parliament, 
when  for  the  old  machinery  of  unlimited  enlist- 
ment was  substituted  a  term  of  ten,  or  in  som 
cases  of  twelve  years.  It  is  difficult  to  understand 
how  the  old  system  can  have  endured  so  long. 
The  Duke  of  Wellington  told  Lord  Stanhope  in 
1831  that  the  English  soldiers  were  the  scum  of 
the  earth,  and  that  many  of  them  enlisted  for 
drink.2  It  must  thus  have  been  a  common  thing 
for  a  young  fellow  of  eighteen  or  twenty  to  take 
the  Queen's  shilling,  and  give  up  his  liberty  for  the 
rest  of  his  life,  when  more  than  half  unconscious 
of  what  he  was  about.  Of  course  desertions  were 
numerous.  It  is  a  wonder  that  they  were  not 
universal.  Yet  the  Duke  said  to  Lord  Stanley 
about  the  Government  and  this  very  reform, 
"  They  have  got  a  damned  good  army,  and  they 
want  to  make  it  a  damned  bad  one." 3  Such  was 
the  language  of  the  Commander-in-Chief.  His 
conduct  showed  the  courageous  inconsistency 
which  often  distinguished  him.  He  spoke  against 
the  Bill  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  he  voted  for 
it.  It  passed,  and  none  of  his  predictions  were 
fulfilled.  Indeed,  experience  proved,  not  that  the 
new  term  was  too  short,  but  that  it  was  too  long. 
The  credit  for  this  salutary  change  belongs  in  the 
first  instance  to  Lord  Grey,  who,  as  Secretary  for 
the  Colonies,  was,  according  to  the  arrangement  of 

1  The  junior  bishop,  unless  he  held  the  See  of  London,  Durham,  or 
Winchester,  was  to  be  left  out      Since  1847  several  new  bishoprics 
have  been  founded,  but  the  number  of  lords  spiritual  has  not  been 
increased. 

2  Stanhope's  Notes  of  Conversations  with  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
2nd  ed. ,  pp.  14,  18.  3  "  Greville  Memoirs/'  30th  April  1847. 


76    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  those  days,  also  Secretary  for  War.  Its  authorship 
did  not  commend  itself  to  the  Duke,  who  regarded 
Lord  Grey  as  little  better  than  a  Radical,  and  a 
Radical  as  little  better  than  a  thief. 

The  Parliament  elected  in  1841  was  dissolved 

1M7.  on  the  23rd  of  July  1847,  having  completed  the 
term  of  six  years  to  which  custom  has  reduced  the 
full  period  allowed  by  the  Septennial  Act.  In  an 
elaborate  address  to  the  electors  of  Tamworth  Sir 
Robert  Peel  vindicated  his  commercial  policy.  But 
the  country  was  not  excited,  and  the  elections  were 
held  in  unusual  calm.  The  result  was,  upon  the 
whole,  satisfactory  to  the  Government.  There 
were  returned  325  Ministerialists,  226  Protec- 
tionists, and  105  Conservatives  who  had  voted  for 
Free  Trade.  Thus,  although  Lord  John  Russell 
had  not  a  clear  majority  of  the  whole  House,  he 
stood  in  very  little  danger  of  defeat,  because  the 
two  parties  of  the  Opposition  were  more  hostile  to 
each  other  than  they  were  to  him.  The  personal 
changes  in  the  House  were  not  numerous,  but 

Baron        some   of  them  were   important.     A  Jew,   Baron 

schiid's  Lionel  Rothschild,  became  a  colleague  of  the 
Prime  Minister  in  the  representation  of  London, 
though  he  could  not,  as  the  law  then  stood,  take 
his  seat.  Lord  George  Bentinck  remained  member 
for  King's  Lynn.  Mr.  Disraeli  became  member  for 
the  county  of  Buckingham,  where  he  had  recently 
purchased  the  Hughenden  estate.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
after  an  absence  of  eighteen  months,  during  the 
first  six  of  which  he  was  a  Secretary  of  State,  re- 
entered  Parliament  as  member  for  the  University 
of  Oxford.  But  the  strangest  and  least  creditable 

Macaws  incident  in  the  election  was  Macaulay's  defeat  at 
Edinburgh.  Lord  Campbell,  then  Chancellor  of 
the  Duchy,  puts  it  down,  with  characteristic  refine- 
ment, to  "Tom's  manners."  The  ostensible  and 
more  probable  cause  was  Macaulay's  vote  in  favour 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE  77 

of  Maynooth,  though  it  is  said  that  a  cry  for  cheap  1347 
whisky  was  not  without  effect,  the  Government 
having  refused  to  lower  the  duty  on  that  beverage. 
In  any  case  the  world  gained  far  more  than  the 
House  of  Commons  or  the  Cabinet  lost.  For 
Macaulay  resigned  the  office  of  Paymaster,  though 
not  for  a  year  after  he  had  forfeited  his  seat,  and 
devoted  himself  entirely  to  that  great  historic  work 
which,  notwithstanding  all  his  devotion,  remains  a 
mere  fragment  of  what  it  should  have  been.  Lord 
Granville  succeeded  him  in  the  Cabinet,  which 
thus  became,  it  was  remarked,  the  most  purely 
aristocratic  since  the  days  of  Henry  Pelham. 

It  was  not  intended  that  the  new  Parliament 
should  meet  before  the  beginning  of  1848.  But 
an  autumn  session  was  required  by  a  financial  The 
crisis.  Before  the  end  of  April,  Mr.  Hume,  who 
studied  the  money  market,  declared  that  the  city 
had  not  been  so  agitated  since  the  great  panic  of 
1825.  In  order  to  raise  their  Irish  loan  of  eight 
millions  promptly,  the  Government  had  been 
obliged  to  offer  special  terms  for  payment  in 
advance.  Throughout  the  summer  the  financial 
situation  grew  steadily  worse,  the  reserve  in  the 
Bank  of  England  fell  dangerously  low,  and  no  other 
bank  had  any  reserve  at  all.  Fifteen  of  the  largest 
houses  in  London  stopped  payment  during  Sep- 
tember. Firms  of  the  highest  respectability  failed 
in  Manchester,  Liverpool,  and  Glasgow.  Private 
credit  was  paralysed,  and  on  the  1st  of  October 
the  rate  of  interest  on  loans  was  60  per  cent. 
About  the  causes  of  this  panic  there  was  at  the 
time  much  dispute ;  but  they  are  clear  enough 
now.  The  crash  was  the  direct  and  inevitable 
result  of  the  "railway  mania."  The  speculative 
classes  had  been  living  on  their  capital,  and  that  is 
a  process  which  must  come  to  an  end.  These 
events  put  to  a  severe  test  the  Bank  Charter  Act 


78    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  of  1844.  The  author  of  that  statute  was  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  but  he  is  understood  to  have  taken 
the  idea  from  Jones  Loyd,  Lord  Overstone.  The 
idea  was  to  separate  the  currency  from  the  banking 
department,  and  to  limit  the  issue  of  bank  notes. 
The  sum  of  £14,000,000  sterling  was  fixed  as  the 
highest  point  to  which  the  issue  might  go  in  excess 
of  bullion.1  This  policy  of  restriction  had  against 
it  the  high  theoretical  authority  of  John  Mill,  and 
the  high  practical  authority  of  Thomas  Baring. 
But  it  has  now  been  the  law  for  sixty  years,  and 
no  serious  attempt  has  been  made  to  repeal  it. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  a  panic  be  sufficiently  severe, 
the  law  is  broken,  and  Parliament  is  asked  for  an 
indemnity.  In  1847  the  Government  held  out  as 
long  as  they  well  could.  Supported  by  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  they  refused  to  interfere  before  the  General 
Election,  and  for  some  time  after  it.  Consols  fell 
to  79,  and  exchequer  bills  were  at  a  discount  of 
35  per  cent.  At  last  the  Governor  and  the 
Deputy-Governor  of  the  Bank  went  to  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer,  and  told  him  that  in 
twenty-four  hours  credit  would  be  stopped.  Then, 
on  the  25th  of  October,  Sir  Charles  Wood  wrote 
what  is  called  a  "  letter  of  license,"  authorising  the 
directors  to  replenish  the  bank  reserve,  which  was 
empty,  from  the  currency  reserve,  which  was  full. 
The  effect  was  magical,  and  showed  how  much 
imagination  has  to  do  with  even  financial  panics. 
Although  the  directors  did  not  act  upon  the 
authority  given  them,  credit  and  confidence  were 
restored,  and  the  crisis  was  at  an  end.  It  is  obvious 
that  no  such  speedy  and  efficacious  remedy  could 
have  been  applied  if  there  had  been  no  Bank 
Charter  Act.  For  in  that  case  notes  would  already 
have  been  issued  to  meet  public  requirements,  the 

1  This  has  since  been  raised  to  £15,000,000  by  the  extinction  of 
other  banks  of  issue. 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE  79 

currency  would  have  been  depreciated  (for  every  1847. 
note  on  the  Bank  of  England  is  a  legal  tender), 
and  the  evil  would  not  have  been  confined  to  the 
speculative  portion  of  the  community.  The  law 
was  not  on  this  occasion  actually  broken.  The 
leave  given  to  break  it  if  necessary  was  enough. 
But  Parliament  was  nevertheless  assembled. 

"Parliament,"  says  Mr.  Greville  (21st  Nov.  The  autumn 
1847),  "never  met  in  more  difficult  and  distressed Be 
times :  complete  disorganisation,  famine  and  ruin 
in  Ireland,  financial  difficulty,  general  alarm  and 
insecurity  here,  want  of  capital,  want  of  employ- 
ment." Greville  exaggerates.  The  worst,  ex- 
cept in  Ireland,  was  over.  Sir  Charles  Wood 
moved,  and  carried  with  the  powerful  aid  of  Peel, 
a  committee  of  inquiry  "  into  the  causes  of  the 
recent  commercial  distress,  and  how  far  it  had 
been  affected  by  the  laws  for  regulating  the  issue 
of  bank  notes  payable  on  demand."  This  com- 
mittee could  find  no  case  against  the  Bank  Charter 
Act.  One  of  the  ablest  men  who  ever  discussed 
finance,  if  not  one  of  the  ablest  financiers,  writing 
in  1873,  said  that  "  the  Act  of  1844  was  only  a 
subordinate  matter  in  the  Money  Market."  1  That 
may  be  so.  But  we  must  remember  that  when  an 
Act  has  been  passed  which  affects  the  ordinary 
business  of  life  as  the  Bank  Charter  Act  does,  it 
operates  so  imperceptibly  that  practical  men  think 
of  it  as  little  as  they  think  of  the  atmosphere. 

The  proposed  violation  of  the  Charter  Act  was 
not  the  only  reason  for  calling  the  new  Parliament 
together  at  once.    The  state  of  Ireland  was  chaotic, 
and  Lord  Clarendon  was  demanding  a  stringent 
measure  of  coercion.      He  did  not  get  it,  and  his 
hints  of  resignation  were  unheeded.     A  Bill  was,  w* 
however,   introduced  by   Sir    George    Grey,  the°° 
Home  Secretary,  and  as  such  then  responsible  for 

1  Lombard  Street,  by  Walter  Bagehot,  p.  3. 


80    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  the  maintenance  of  order  not  merely  in  Eng- 
land, but  throughout  the  United  Kingdom.1  Sir 
George  Grey's  Bill  excited  so  little  opposition 
that  only  14  Irish  members  voted  against  it,  and 
the  total  minority  fell  short  of  20  votes.  It 
was,  indeed,  far  milder  than  any  one  outside  the 
Cabinet  expected,  and  Mr.  John  O'Connell,  a, 
son  of  the  Liberator,  frankly  confessed  that  its 
leniency  surprised  him.  Sir  Theodore  Martin, 
in  his  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,  reads  the 
Whigs  a  severe  lecture  upon  the  Nemesis  which 
overtook  them  for  their  unpatriotic  conduct  in 
voting  against  the  Coercion  Bill  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel.  But  to  this  Sir  Spencer  Walpole,  in  his 
biography  of  Lord  John  Russell,  has  furnished  a 
conclusive  reply.  The  two  Bills  were  so  entirely 
different  that  to  call  them  by  a  common  name, 
though  perhaps  inevitable,  is  also  inevitably  mis- 
leading. Coercion  is  a  convenient  and  appropriate 
term  for  measures  which  in  social  emergencies 
abridge  freedom  to  put  down  crime.  It  is  an 
historical  accident,  though  one  of  much  significance, 
that  since  the  repeal  of  the  six  Acts,  such  measures 
have  only  been  passed  for  Ireland.  But  there  is 
coercion  and  coercion.  Sir  Robert  Peel's  Bill 
would  have  punished  with  transportation  men  who 
had  no  reasonable  excuse  for  being  out  of  doors 
after  nightfall.  Lord  John  Russell's  Bill  merely 
prohibited  the  use  of  arms  without  a  license  in 
districts  proclaimed  by  the  Lord-Lieutenant ;  gave 
the  police  more  stringent  rights  of  search ;  and 
made  it  a  crime  not  to  assist  a  constable  in  the 

1  No  formal  separation  of  powers  has  beeu  made  by  Parliament, 
and,  theoretically,  the  position  of  the  Chief  Secretary  to  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant  was  the  same  then  as  it  is  now.  In  the  case  of  Scotland 
a  new  office  has  been  created.  The  process  by  which  the  Home  Secre- 
tary ceased  to  be  responsible  for  Irish  affairs  was  a  gradual  one,  and 
so  lately  as  1882  Sir  William  Harcourt,  then  Home  Secretary,  intro- 
duced a  Bill  for  the  prevention  of  crime  in  Ireland. 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE  81 

apprehension  of  a  wrong-doer.  Lord  Clarendon  1847. 
was  induced  reluctantly  to  express  his  satisfaction 
with  these  powers,  chiefly  on  the  ground  that  it 
was  desirable  to  secure  the  practical  unanimity  of 
Parliament.  Mr.  Disraeli  did  not  oppose  the  Bill, 
nor  Mr.  Hume,  nor  Mr.  Cobden,  nor  Mr.  Bright. 
Lord  Stanley  in  the  House  of  Lords  denounced  it 
as  too  weak  for  its  purpose.  Such  also  was  the 
opinion  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  though  he  was  too 
constitutional  a  statesman  to  press  upon  the 
Executive  Government  an  authority  for  which 
they  did  not  ask.  But  Peel,  in  the  course  of 
his  speech,  anticipating  by  many  years  a  famous 
dictum  of  John  Bright's,  reminded  the  House 
that  expedients  of  this  kind  were  no  remedies  for 
social  evils.  Few  Ministers  needed  this  warning 
less  than  Lord  John  Russell,  who  in  Irish  politics 
went  deeper  and  saw  further  than  most  of  his 
colleagues.  The  crisis  of  1847  convinced  him  that 
the  Irish  landlords  were  not  entitled  to  a  rent 
which  left  an  inadequate  provision  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  tenant  and  the  relief  of  the  poor. 

The  session  which  began  in  November  1847  was 
interrupted  by  adjournment  for  Christmas,  and 
was  not  resumed  till  the  3rd  of  February  1848. 
Both  Lord  Stanley  and  Lord  George  Bentinck 
made  pugnacious  speeches  on  the  Address.  But 
the  only  question  which  divided  parties  before 
Christmas  was  the  claim  of  Baron  Rothschild  to  Jewish 
take  his  seat  for  the  City  of  London,  and  that 
proved  fatal  to  the  influence  of  Lord  George 
Bentinck  himself.  A  Jew  was  not  ineligible,  and 
the  Baron  had  been  duly  elected.  But  every 
member  of  either  House  had  then  to  take  the  oath 
of  allegiance  "  on  the  true  faith  of  a  Christian," 
and  this  oath  it  was  obvious  that  a  Jew  could  not 
take.  The  Government  determined  to  legislate 
for  the  removal  of  this  grievance,  and  the  Prime 
vol..  i  G 


82    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  Minister  himself  moved  the  preliminary  resolution 
upon  which  a  Bill  dealing  with  religion  must  be 
founded.  It  was  carried  by  a  majority  of  67, 
but  more  than  ten  years  elapsed  before  the 
political  disabilities  of  the  Jewish  race  were,  by  a 
curious  and  characteristically  English  compromise, 
taken  away.  The  principal  speaker  against  the 
resolution  was  Lord  Ashley,  who  had  returned  to 
the  House  with  the  new  Parliament.  United  on 
the  other  side,  a  strange  trio,  were  Mr.  Gladstone, 
Mr.  Disraeli,  and  Lord  George  Bentinck.  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  formerly  opposed  the  admission  of 
the  Jews  to  municipal  offices.  But  as  that  point 
had  been  conceded,  he  held  that  it  was  illogical  to 
exclude  them  from  the  Legislature.  Whether  the 
argument  be  sound  or  not,  it  was  a  singularly 
courageous  one  in  the  mouth  of  a  member  for  the 
University  of  Oxford.  By  far  the  most  interesting 
Disraeli  and  speech  in  the  debate  was  Mr.  Disraeli's.  For 
Lord  John  Russell  the  matter  was  simple  and  easy. 
Civil  and  religious  liberty  might  almost  be  called 
his  family  motto.  To  Mr.  Disraeli  the  phrase  was 
an  empty  formula.  A  Jew  by  birth,  he  professed 
the  Christian  religion,  and  he  was  a  leader  of  the 
Tory  revolt  against  Peel.  He  had  been,  or  called 
himself,  a  Radical.  He  never  was,  nor  called 
himself,  a  Whig.  But  his  belief  in  his  race  was  as 
fervent  as  the  religious  enthusiasm  of  any  pietist 
in  the  Church  to  which  he  nominally  adhered. 
The  chapter  in  his  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck 
entitled  "  The  Jewish  Question  " l  is  quite  the  most 
extraordinary  essay  that  ever  found  its  way  into  a 
political  biography.  Upon  an  historical  point  of 
some  importance  Mr.  Disraeli  differs  from  Tacitus, 
and  assigns  the  crucifixion  of  Christ  to  the  reign 
of  Augustus  Csesar.  The  reasoning  is  quite  as 
original  as  the  history,  and  it  is  impossible  not  to 

1  Chapter  xxiv. 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE  83 

admire  the  sublime  assurance  of  the  statement  that  1847. 
"  no  one  has  ever  been  permitted  to  write  under 
the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit  except  a  Jew." 
Mr.  Disraeli  haughtily  declined  to  rest  the  claims 
of  the  Jews  upon  the  prosaic  fact  that  they  were 
citizens  and  taxpayers.  He  vindicated  for  them 
a  peculiar  position  of  inherent  superiority  to  the 
rest  of  mankind,  arguing  that  a  Jew  was  only 
an  undeveloped  Christian,  and  a  Christian  only 
a  developed  Jew.  Lamenting,  with  inimitable 
gravity,  that  Baron  Rothschild  rejected  half  of 
the  true  Jewish  faith,  which  really  embraced 
Christianity,  he  asked  whether  any  one  could  deny 
that  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  Incarnate  Son  of  the 
Most  High  God,  was  the  eternal  glory  of  the 
Jewish  race."  Mr.  Disraeli's  client,  Baron  Roth- 
schild, would  certainly  have  denied  it,  and  that  was 
the  very  reason  why  he  could  not  take  the  oath 
prescribed  by  law.  But  whatever  may  be  thought 
of  Mr.  Disraeli's  history,  his  logic,  or  his  taste,  his 
courage  at  that  time  was  splendid.  It  was  many 
years  before  his  party  forgave  his  fidelity  to  the 
race  of  which  he  was  so  illustrious  an  ornament. 

The  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  the  singular  book 
already  so  often  quoted,  opens  with  the  following 
sentence  : — "  The  views  expressed  in  the  preceding 
chapter  were  not  those  which  influenced  Lord 
George  Bentinck  in  forming  his  opinion  that  the 
civil  disabilities  of  those  subjects  of  Her  Majesty 
who  profess  that  limited  belief  in  divine  revelation 
which  is  commonly  called  the  Jewish  religion 
should  be  removed."  Most  assuredly  they  were 
not.  Lord  George  was  about  as  capable  of  con- 
ceiving or  comprehending  them  as  of  writing  a 
Greek  ode,  or  understanding  a  proposition  in 
political  economy.  But  he  had  been  a  Whig 
before  he  was  a  Tory,  and  as  such  had  voted  for 
the  Jew  Bill  of  Mr.  Robert  Grant.  Personally,  as 


84    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  his  private  correspondence  shows,  he  cared  little  or 
nothing  about  the  matter.  He  was  an  obstinate 
man,  and  perfectly  fearless.  His  temper  bordered 
on  the  irritable,  and  he  brooked  not  contradiction. 
Although  his  health  was  impaired  by  his  strange 
refusal  to  eat  or  drink  while  the  House  of 
Commons  was  sitting,  he  rose  from  his  bed  to  speak 
and  vote  for  Lord  John  Russell's  resolution.  To 
his  more  bigoted  followers  this  gave  great  offence, 
and  they  addressed  to  him  a  written  remonstrance. 
Like  a  man  of  spirit  he  at  once  resigned,  and 
Lord  Stanley,  who  knew  too  much  about  the  turf 
to  trust  him,  made  no  effort  to  retain  his  co- 
operation. 

The  autumn  of  1847  was  visited  and  en- 
livened by  an  ecclesiastical  storm.  The  cause 
was  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Hampden,  Regius 
The  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Oxford,  to  the  Bishopric 
<^™P '  of  Hereford.  Dr.  Hampden  was  an  ordinary 
person,  whose  peculiar  fate  it  was  to  cause  two 
convulsions  in  the  Church.  His  heresies  were  so 
minute  that  they  required  a  theological  micro- 
scope, and  were  invisible  to  the  naked  eye. 
When  Lord  Melbourne,  a  learned  theologian 
and  a  complete  free-thinker,  nominated  him  to 
the  Oxford  Chair,  he  was  unconscious  of  the  stir 
which  the  nomination  would  make.  Lord  John 
Russell,  on  the  contrary,  knew  very  well  what  he 
was  doing,  and  intended  the  consequences  which 
followed.  Lord  John  did  not  share  Lord  Mel- 
bourne's cynical  indifference  to  religious  disputes. 
He  was  a  strong  Protestant  and  a  thorough-going 
Erastian,  determined  to  assert  the  authority  of  the 
State,  and  dreading  the  encroachments  of  the 
Church  of  Rome.  He  regarded  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment with  abhorrence ;  the  secession  of  Dr.  Newman 
had  alarmed  him ;  and  when  he  recommended  Dr. 
Hampden  to  the  Crown,  he  meant  to  strike  a  blow 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  PEOPLE  85 

at  the  High  Church  party.  A  number  of  bishops,  1847. 
failing,  as  bishops  so  often  fail,  to  realise  the 
meaning  of  an  establishment,  protested  against  the 
choice  of  the  Minister,  which  had  now  become  the 
choice  of  the  Queen.  The  House  of  Commons  is 
the  only  place  where  the  Royal  prerogative  can  be 
constitutionally  or  successfully  challenged.  Lord 
John  wrote  a  firm  and  temperate  reply  to  these 
episcopal  remonstrants,  whose  own  honours  and 
emoluments  were  derived  from  the  authority  they 
impugned.  To  the  Dean  of  Hereford,  Dr.  Mere- 
wether,  who  declared  that  he  would  not  vote  for 
Dr.  Hampden  in  the  Chapter,  Lord  John  took  a 
higher  line.  "  I  beg  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of 
your  letter,  in  which  you  announce  your  intention 
of  violating  the  law,"  was  the  Prime  Minister's 
response  to  the  Dean,  who  carried  out  his  threat, 
and  voted  against  Dr.  Hampden.  But  as  the 
majority  of  the  Chapter  voted  the  other  way,  the 
penalties  of  prcemunire  were  not  incurred.  The 
Vicar  General  refused  to  hear  objections  at  the 
Bishop's  confirmation  in  Bow  Church,  and  an  appeal 
was  made  to  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench  for  a 
mandamus  to  compel  him.  The  four  judges  being 
equally  divided,  no  rule  was  granted,  and  the  case 
was  then  allowed  to  drop.  More  than  half  a 
century  afterwards  the  King's  Bench  Division  in 
similar  circumstances  decided  that  the  Vicar 
General  had  no  power  to  deal  with  anything  short 
of  a  legal  disqualification,  and  that  therefore  a 
mandamus  would  not  lie.  Dr.  Hampden  was  not 
again  molested.  But  the  High  Church  party  never 
forgave  Lord  John. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  Lord  Hardinge  vacated  Lord 
his  office  as  Governor-General  of  India.     Though  Si 

11.  i  (>  iiii  Dalhousie 

a  soldier,  he  was  a  man  or  peace,  and  though  com- 
pelled to  fight  on  the  Sutlej,  where  the  British 
arms  were  completely  successful,  he  steadily  refused 


86    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847.  to  annex  the  Punjab,  agreeing  with  Sir  Robert 
Peel  that  our  empire  in  India  was  "  overgrown." l 
Always  anxious  to  conciliate  the  Peelites,  Lord 
John  offered  this  great  place  to  Sir  James  Graham, 
who  after  some  hesitation  declined  it.  It  was 
finally  accepted,  with  momentous  consequences 
to  the  Indian  Empire,  by  another  Peelite,  the 
Earl  of  Dalhousie.  Lord  Dalhousie  had  come 
very  young  into  public  life,  and  his  talents  had 
already  made  themselves  felt.  But  that  he  would 
be  the  most  brilliant  Governor-General  since  the 
days  of  Lord  Wellesley  nobody  then  foresaw. 

1  When  he  left  India,  Lord  Hardinge  expressed  to  Lord  Dalhousie 
the  opinion  that  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  fire  another  shot  there 
for  five  years. 


CHAPTER    V 

REVOLUTION    AND    REACTION 

THE  year  1848  opened  in  anxiety  and  gloom.  1848. 
There  was  indeed  no  anticipation  of  the  dramatic 
changes  which  actually  occurred.  But  unrest  and 
alarm  prevailed,  "  distress  of  nations  with  per- 
plexity." The  commercial  panic  of  the  autumn 
had  thrown  thousands  out  of  work ;  the  price  of 
bread,  not  yet  untaxed,  was  unusually  high,  and 
there  was  a  serious  amount  of  discontent  among 
the  labouring  classes  of  Great  Britain.  In  Ireland  Panic. 
continued  famine  and  starvation  had  reduced  the 
masses  of  the  people  to  a  dangerous  condition  of 
mingled  wrath  and  despair.  Men  had  not  much 
confidence  in  the  Government,  nor  in  the  future, 
nor  in  each  other.  An  unlucky  accident  made 
matters  worse.  Early  in  January  there  was  pub- 
lished a  letter  from  the  Duke  of  Wellington  toTheD 

o  letter  to 

Sir  John  Burgoyne,  then  Chief  Engineer,  on  the 
defences  of  the  country.  The  letter  was  more  than 
a  year  old  ;  it  was  confidential ;  and  its  publication 
was  much  regretted  by  the  Duke.  It  made,  how- 
ever, a  great  stir,  as  well  it  might,  for  it  explained 
that,  in  the  Duke's  opinion,  which  no  soldier  durst 
contradict,  England  could  be  successfully  invaded 
at  a  number  of  specified  points,  and  that  neither 
men  nor  ammunition  were  adequate  for  resistance. 
Mr.  Cobden,  in  a  speech  at  Manchester,  referred 
in  contemptuous  terms  to  this  letter,  and  to  its 

87 


88    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  illustrious  author.  His  attack  upon  the  Duke, 
who  could  have  no  conceivable  motive  except  the 
good  of  his  country,  and  had  not  allowed  the  letter 
to  be  published,  was  a  serious  error  in  taste  and 
judgment.  His  protest  against  panic  was  better 
founded.  But  the  Duke  did  not  speak  without 
book.  The  meagreness  of  the  artillery  was  a  serious 
source  of  danger.  Meanwhile  the  Government 
were  compelled  to  take  the  matter  up.  Lord  John 
Russell  wrote  an  elaborate  memorandum  in  favour 
of  immediately  replenishing  the  arsenals,  and  gradu- 
ally increasing  the  militia.  He  sent  it  to  Lord 
Palmerston,  who  replied  in  his  familiar  tone  of 
cheerful  and  ostentatious  panic  that  Lord  John's 
proposals  were  too  weak,  and  that  their  effect  would 
The  first  be  too  slow.  The  Budget  was  introduced  on  the 
is4sfet  18th  of  February  by  the  Prime  Minister  himself,1 
who  stated  on  the  authority  of  the  Cabinet  and  his 
own  that  the  income  tax  must  be  raised  from  7d. 
to  Is.  in  the  pound,  and  that  for  two  years.  It 
would  then  remain  at  7d.  for  three  years  more, 
when  it  was  to  cease.  This  announcement,  which 
Lord  John  rested  mainly  upon  the  Duke's  letter, 
provoked  an  explosion  of  public  wrath  such  as  no 
other  Budget  has  kindled  since.  Panic  has  its 
luxurious  side.  Payment  is  an  unmitigated  evil,  and 
Lord  John's  speech  did  not  gild  the  pill.  It  was 
almost  universally  regarded  as  injudicious,  and  his 
allusions  to  the  military  establishments  of  France 
were  not  happy.  Louis  Philippe,  the  least  warlike 
of  men,  was  a  bad  bugbear,  and  people  began  to 
ask  themselves  whether  there  was  not  something 
to  be  said  for  Cobden's  view.  In  the  House  of 
Commons  Mr.  Cobden  attacked  the  Government, 

1  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  made  a  precedent  for  this  in  1842,  and  followed 
it  in  1845.  On  neither  occasion  was  he  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  ; 
indeed,  he  only  held  that  office  in  the  brief  Tory  Government  of 
1834-36. 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION      89 

and  Mr.  Disraeli  attacked  them  both.  Matters  1848. 
were  not  improved  when,  five  days  later,  Sir  Charles  Feb.  23. 
Wood,  who,  according  to  Greville,  was  as  much 
disgusted  with  his  chiefs  speech  as  any  one,  pro- 
posed the  appointment  of  two  secret  committees, 
one  for  the  Army  and  Navy  Estimates,  the  other 
for  those  of  the  Civil  Service.  The  secrecy  had  to  be 
abandoned.  But  the  Committees  were  struck,  and 
reported  strongly  in  favour  of  retrenchment.  "  Are 
we  all  mad  ? "  asked  Joseph  Hume  in  despair  after 
Lord  John's  speech.  Sanity  according  to  Hume 
very  soon  returned,  and  a  cold  fit  succeeded  the 
hot  one.  The  country  was  not  in  a  mood  to  bear 
heavier  taxation.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  was 
honoured  and  respected  more  than  any  other  living 
Englishman.  But  his  advice  was  disregarded,  and 
yet  Palmerston  was  retained  at  the  Foreign  Office. 
This  combination  of  warlike  diplomacy  with  pacific 
armaments  almost  deserved  the  epithet  of  Hume. 

While  the  House  of  Commons  was  considering 
the  Duke's  letter,  and  the  doubled  income  tax, 
there  happened  in  France,  the  land  of  theatrical 
surprises,  a  sudden  and  unexpected  event  which 
upset  the  calculations  of  every  statesman  in  Europe. 
On  the  24th  of  February  the  Constitutional  The  French 
Monarchy,  the  Monarchy  of  July,  collapsed  without 
warning,  without  resistance,  without  a  blow.  It 
had  never  any  true  hold  upon  either  the  minds  or 
the  affections  of  the  working  classes,  and  because 
it  had  no  root,  it  withered  away.  After  seventeen 
years  of  peace  and  prosperity,  King  Louis  Philippe  Faiiot ^mis 
fell  with  unexampled  suddenness  from  the  heights 
of  power  to  the  depths  of  impotence.  He  fell 
without  dignity  or  credit,  and  without  even  an 
attempt  to  defend  his  family,  his  dynasty,  or 
himself.  Alexis  de  Tocqueville,  in  his  merciless 
Reminiscences,  says  that  the  King  was  bewildered 
and  stupefied  by  sheer  amazement.  His  Majesty 


90    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  had,  says  M.  de  Tocqueville,  confided  so  entirely 
in  his  own  kingcraft,  he  had  got  so  much  into  the 
habit  of  putting  down  his  own  luck  to  his  own 
cleverness,  that  when  his  luck  failed  him,  he  was 
as  helpless  as  a  child.  A  more  honourable  explana- 
tion is,  however,  possible.  The  Emperor  Otho  is 
lauded  as  a  martyr  because  he  committed  suicide 
to  stop  the  civil  war  between  the  partisans  of 
Vitellius  and  his  own.  Louis  Philippe  had  a 
sincere  horror  of  bloodshed,  and  it  may  be  that  he 
would  not  have  retained  his  crown  at  the  expense  of 
his  subjects.  At  any  rate  the  latest  form  of  French 
Monarchy  fell  to  pieces  like  a  house  of  cards.  On 
Tuesday  the  22nd  of  February  M.  Odilon  Barrot 
proposed  in  the  Chamber  the  impeachment  of 
M.  Guizot's  Ministry.  Guizot  was  aware  of  the 
Republican  movement  in  Paris,  and  would  have 
resisted  it  if  he  had  been  supported  by  the  King. 
But  Louis  Philippe  was  not  indisposed  to  sacrifice 
his  unpopular  Minister,  and  Guizot  was  ready  in 
the  circumstances  to  sacrifice  himself.  On  the 
23rd  he  resigned,  and  the  King  sent  for  Count 
Mole'.  Upon  M.  Mole's  failure  to  form  a  Govern- 
ment, the  task,  the  impossible  task  as  it  turned 
out,  was  entrusted  to  M.  Thiers  and  M.  Barrot. 
At  a  later  period  of  his  life  M.  Thiers  rendered 
priceless  services  to  his  country,  and  became  by 
general  consent  the  chief  magistrate  of  France. 
But  in  1848  he  did  not  distinguish  himself,  and  so 
far  from  riding  the  whirlwind,  he  was  swept  away 
by  the  storm.  The  flood  of  democracy,  swelled  by 
discontent  and  poverty,  carried  everything  before 
it.  On  the  24th  of  February,  no  Government 
having  been  formed,  a  number  of  Republicans, 
headed  by  Emile  de  Girardin,  invaded  the  Tuileries, 
and  demanded  the  abdication  of  the  King.  He 
abdicated  at  once  in  favour  of  his  grandson,  the 
Comte  de  Paris,  for  whom  the  Comte's  mother,  the 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION      91 

Duchesse  d'Orleans,  was  to  be  Regent.  The  mother  1343. 
and  son  were  conducted  to  the  Palais  Bourbon. 
Some  of  the  deputies  cheered  them  loudly  ;  Lamar- 
tine  made  an  eloquent  speech  on  their  behalf;  and 
it  was  the  opinion  of  de  Tocqueville  that,  if  the 
Duchesse  had  risen  to  the  occasion,  the  Monarchy 
might  have  been  saved.  However  this  may  have 
been,  the  critical  moment  was  allowed  to  slip,  and 
the  Republic  was  proclaimed  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 
The  King  and  his  family  escaped  to  England  by 
way  of  Honfleur  and  Havre.  He  landed  at  New- 
haven  under  the  name  of  Smith,  and  wrote  to  The 
Queen  Victoria,  in  token  of  his  fall,  as  the  Comte  Enyfa 
de  Neuilly.  Since  the  first  Lord  Shaftesbury  took 
refuge  in  Holland,  for  which  he  had  proclaimed 
the  fate  of  Carthage,  there  had  scarcely  been  a 
more  incongruous  choice  of  exile.  But  though 
the  memory  of  the  Spanish  marriages  was  fresh  in 
the  minds  of  Englishmen,  they  showed,  with  one 
conspicuous  exception,  no  resentment.  The  Queen, 
forgetting  everything  except  the  misfortunes  of 
the  royal  pair,  received  them  with  the  utmost  kind- 
ness, and  they  took  up  their  abode  at  Claremont, 
which  belonged  to  the  King  of  the  Belgians.  Lord 
Palmerston  alone  was  implacable,  and  the  mis- 
fortunes of  his  enemy  did  not  soften  his  heart.  He 
did  all  he  could  to  turn  Louis  Philippe  out  of  the 
country.  But  he  was  unsuccessful,  and  the  brief 
remainder  of  the  discrowned  King's  days  were 
spent  at  Claremont.  M.  Guizot  also  fled  from 
Paris  in  disguise,  and  also  crossed  the  Channel. 
He  too  took  up  his  residence  in  England,  where  he 
had  many  friends,  from  Sir  Robert  Peel  downwards. 
His  religion  was  austerely  Protestant,  and  few 
Englishmen  were  better  acquainted  either  with  the 
situation  or  with  the  politics  of  this  country.  No 
form  of  exile  could  have  been  more  congenial  to 
him,  and  in  London  his  welcome  was  as  cordial  as 


92    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  if  there  had  been  no  royal  marriages  in  Madrid. 
Guizot  was  largely  responsible  for  his  master's 
failure.  His  government  had  indeed  been  mild 
and  humane.  "  I  knew  enough  of  its  vices,"  says 
de  Tocqueville,  "to  be  aware  that  cruelty  was  not 
one  of  them."  But  corruption  was,  and  although 
Guizot  was  personally  pure,  he  connived  at  the 
misdeeds  of  others.  A  nettoyer  deux  chambres,  et 
une  couronne  was  a  placard  seen  more  than  once  in 
Paris  during  the  later  months  of  1847.  It  might 
have  been  thought  that  the  French  Revolution 
would  have  revived  the  financial  panic  in  England. 
Its  effect,  however,  was  precisely  the  reverse. 
When  the  news  reached  the  House  of  Commons, 
Cobden  said  to  Hume,  "  Go  and  tell  Sir  Robert 
Peel."  Peel  was  sitting,  as  he  was  wont  to  sit, 
silent  and  aloof.  When  Hume  had  given  his 
message,  Peel  replied,  "  This  is  what  would  have 
happened  here  if  these  gentlemen,"  pointing  to  the 
Protectionists,  "had  had  their  way."  If  Peel's 
words  look  like  an  exaggeration  now,  we  must 
remember  that  the  Crown  was  only  then  beginning 
to  become  once  more  popular,  and  that  Peel's 
opinion  was  also  the  opinion  of  M.  Guizot,  a  Con- 
servative, a  champion  of  the  landed  interest,  and  of 
all  Frenchmen  the  one  who  knew  England  best. 

The  vacillation  of  the  Whig  Government  was 
proof  against  the  most  tremendous  convulsions  of 
the  political  world.  Sir  Charles  Wood  was  the 
reverse  of  Brutus.1  It  was  of  little  consequence 
what  he  meant.  For  he  did  not  mean  it  much,  or 
long.  On  the  28th  of  February,  ten  days  after  his 
me  second  first  Budget,  when  Europe  was  rocking  like  a  ship 

Budget  of      .  .       ,          ,  f      ,  ,     .1         &  ,     .    r 

1848.  m  a  storm,  he  calmly  abandoned  the  proposed  in- 
crease of  the  income  tax,  an  increase  of  nearly  a 
hundred  per  cent,  which  the  Prime  Minister  had 
just  pronounced  essential  to  the  stability  of  the 

1  Magni  refert  hie  quid  velit.      Sed  quidquid  volet,  valde  volet. 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION      93 

financial  equilibrium.  This  left  him  with  a  hand- 1848 
some  deficit  of  more  than  three  millions,  which  he 
borrowed  without  a  blush  in  time  of  peace.  Even 
then  Sir  Robert  Peel  did  not  desert  his  clients. 
But  he  took  the  opportunity  of  defending  first  the 
income  tax,  and  secondly  Free  Trade.1  There  is 
force  in  Mr.  Disraeli's  sarcastic  comment.  "In 
the  midst  of  general  convulsion,  with  four  pitched 
battles  fought  in  Europe  in  eight  weeks,  and  the 
Adriatic  and  the  Baltic  both  blockaded,  the 
Government  discovered  that  without  the  increased 
tax  our  armaments  were  sufficiently  strong  and  our 
means  of  defence  adequate." 2  The  plain  truth  is 
that  if  Ministers  had  persevered  with  a  shilling 
income  tax,  for  which  there  was  much  to  be  said, 
they  would  have  been  beaten,  and  they  knew  it. 
What  they  perhaps  did  not  know  was  that  Peel 
would  have  overcome  his  reluctance  to  take  office 
again  rather  than  let  a  Protectionist  Ministry  in. 
To  Peel's  defence  of  the  income  tax  Cobden 
replied  that  it  was  unjust  to  precarious,  or  pro- 
fessional, as  compared  with  permanent  incomes. 
This  is  an  argument  which,  plausible  as  it  seems, 
no  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  has  ever  admitted. 
The  official  answer  always  repeats  that  the  tax  is 
as  precarious  as  the  income,  and  the  income  as 
permanent  as  the  tax. 

The  great  events  of  1848  did  not  happen  in 
England,  nor  were  the  English  people  directly 
concerned  in  them.  But  the  unity  of  Europe  is 
such  that  they  cannot  be  passed  over  here,  and  a 
brief  outline  of  the  facts  is  necessary  to  any  one  who 
would  understand  the  foreign  policy  of  England. 
On  the  3rd  of  March  a  provisional  Government 

1  Sir  Spencer  Walpole  is  not  less  loyal.     Like  a  good  biographer, 
he  pleads  the  disturbed  state  of  the  Continent  as  a  justification  for 
Lord  John's  change  of  front. 

2  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck,  pp.  651-552. 


94    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  was  formed  at  Paris.  The  nominal  chief  of  it  was 
umartiue.  tne  age(j  M  Dupont,  but  its  real  head  was  Lamar- 
tine,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.  At  this 
time  the  ascendency  of  Lamartine  was  unbounded. 
He  was  for  the  moment  the  idol  of  Paris,  and  he 
mistook  Paris  for  France.  His  undaunted  courage 
and  his  captivating  eloquence  made  him  irresistible. 
As  Foreign  Minister  he  issued  a  flowery  manifesto 
to  the  diplomatic  agents  of  France  abroad,  assur- 
ing them,  and  assuring  Europe,  that,  unlike  the 
Republic  of  1792,  the  Republic  of  1848  meant 
peace.  At  the  same  time  he  laid  down  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  territorial  arrangements  fixed  by 
the  Treaty  of  Vienna  could  not  be  regarded  as 
permanent,  and  vindicated  the  rights  of  Italian 
nationality.  In  this  respect  Lamartine  was  before 
his  time,  and  he  had  the  sympathies  of  Lord 
Palmerston.  The  national  workshops,  on  the 
other  hand,  established  at  the  suggestion  of  Louis 
Blanc  and  George  Sand,  were  the  subject  of  much 
ridicule  in  England,  though,  as  Cobden  remarked 
a  year  afterwards,  the  workhouses  were  our  ateliers 
nationaux.  There  was  much  dislike  of  England  at 
that  time  in  France,  and  employers  of  labour  found 
it  necessary  to  dismiss  their  English  workmen, 
some  of  whom  arrived  home  in  a  state  of  destitution. 
On  the  23rd  and  24th  of  April  were  held  the 
elections  for  the  National  Assembly.  At  the  head 
of  the  poll  for  the  department  of  the  Seine  was 
Lamartine.  At  the  bottom  was  Lamennais,  the 
Liberal  Catholic,  a  man  of  more  theological  than 
political  distinction.  M.  Thiers  was  defeated  in 
the  Benches  du  Rhone.  No  less  than  four  con- 
stituencies elected  Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  who 
was  then,  and  had  long  been,  a  fugitive  in  England. 
geturn  of  fje  was  permitted  to  return,  and  to  take  his  seat. 
Napoleon.  gut  he  could  not  speak,  and  as  a  deputy  he  was  a 
failure.  He  had  other  designs,  in  which  fluency 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION      95 

was  not  required,  and  his  hesitation  in  the  tribune  1848. 
did  him  no  harm.  As  Tacitus  says  of  Domitian, 
"  ignotis  adhuc  moribus,  crebra  oris  confusio  pro 
modestia  accipiebatur," l  since  his  character  was  not 
yet  known,  his  frequent  confusion  of  face  was  taken 
for  modesty.  The  Assembly  met  on  the  4th  of 
May,  and  at  once  declared  the  Republic  to  be  the 
established  form  of  Government  in  France.  A 
Committee  was  appointed  to  draw  up  a  Constitu- 
tion, which  decided  in  favour  of  a  single  Chamber, 
and  a  President  elected  by  universal  suffrage. 
Meanwhile,  on  the  15th  of  May,  a  mob  broke  into 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  and  after  a  tumultuous 
scene  was  expelled  by  the  National  Guard.  The 
Fete  de  Concorde  on  Sunday  the  21st  did  not  belie 
its  name.  But  in  June  the  streets  of  Paris  were  The 
desolated  by  civil  strife,  and  on  Sunday  the  25th  bs 
the  Archbishop  of  Paris  was  shot  from  a  barricade 
while  attempting  to  act  as  mediator  between  the 
parties.  On  the  28th  General  Cavaignac  was 
chosen  by  the  Assembly  to  be  President  of  the 
Council,  and  he  at  once  suppressed  the  national 
workshops.  He  was  an  honest  man,  and  by  con- 
viction a  Republican.  But  his  term  of  office  was 
brief.  Although  in  the  Chamber  he  had  no  rival, 
in  the  country  the  name  of  Napoleon  carried  every- 
thing before  it,  and  on  the  10th  of  December  Louis 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  was  elected  President  of  the 
Republic  by  5,434,226  votes  against  1,448,107  cast  Louis 
for  Cavaignac,  the  choice  of  the  National  Assembly.  Elected011 
On  the  20th  of  December  the  new  President  took  R 
an  oath  that  he  would  observe  the  Constitution,  and 
appointed  Odilon  Barrot  to  be  his  Prime  Minister. 
The  French  people,  said  Thiers,  made  two  great 
mistakes  about  Louis  Napoleon.  The  first  was 
when  they  took  him  for  a  fool.  The  second  was 
when  they  took  him  for  a  man  of  genius.  They 

1  Hist.  iv.  40. 


96    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  accepted  him  lightly  on  account  of  his  name.  It 
was  twenty-two  years  before  they  got  rid  of 
him,  and  France  herself  nearly  perished  in  the 
process. 

continental  But  it  was  not  only  in  France  that  the  revolu- 
itevoiution.  tionary  storm  broke  out.  In  Berlin  the  soldiers 
fired  on  the  people,  and  the  Prince  of  Prussia, 
afterwards  German  Emperor,  sought  the  hospitality 
of  Great  Britain,  while  his  brother,  the  King,  eager 
to  do  something  constitutional,  called  a  National 
Assembly.  In  Austria  things  went  much  further. 
On  the  15th  of  March  Prince  Metternich,  that 
veteran  obstructive  of  reform,  fled  in  haste  from 
Vienna,  never  to  return.  The  Hungarians  rose 
in  revolt,  and  proclaimed  Louis  Kossuth  their 
Dictator.  The  imbecile  Emperor  Ferdinand  was 
Abdication  obliged  to  abdicate,  and  was  succeeded  by  his 

°fthe  P  T,  •  T  1  ,1  ' 

Emperor     nephew,  x rancis  Joseph,  then  a  very  young  man, 

Ferdinand.  *  n-n-  -11  rm 

but  a  man  ot  intelligence  and  character.  Ihe 
Hungarian  rebellion  deserved  success,  was  for  a 
time  completely  successful,  and  would  have  suc- 
ceeded altogether  if  Austria  had  been  left  to 
cope  with  it  alone.  But  many  Poles  took 
part  in  it ;  the  most  successful  of  the  Hun- 
garian Generals,  Bern,  was  a  Pole,  and  this 
gave  Russia  an  excuse,  or  at  least  a  pretext,  for 
interfering.  At  first  the  rebels  were  everywhere 
victorious,  and  Hungary  was  rapidly  slipping  away 
from  the  grasp  of  Austria.  But  on  the  27th  of 
interfer-  April  1849  there  came  out  a  manifesto  from 
Nicholas  in  Count  Nesselrode,  the  Russian  Chancellor,  ex- 
8aiy>  plaining  that  his  august  master,  the  Emperor 
Nicholas,  was  unable  to  acquiesce  in  disturbances 
so  near  his  own  borders.  The  Emperor  Nicholas 
had  no  right  whatever  to  intervene.  But  intervene 
he  did,  and  from  that  moment  the  tide  turned. 
The  gallant  Hungarians  could  not  stand  against 
the  armies  of  Russia,  and  on  the  13th  of  August 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION      97 

their  General,  Gorgey,  surrendered  to  the  Russian  1349. 
forces  with  thirty  thousand  men.  Marshal  Haynau, 
a  man  justly  odious  for  his  barbarous  cruelty, 
received,  on  the  1st  of  October  1849,  the  great 
Hungarian  fortress  of  Komorn  from  General 
Klapka,  and  the  rebellion  was  at  an  end.  Kossuth 
and  the  other  rebels  fled  to  Widdin,  in  Turkish 
territory,  and  the  Sultan,  Abdul  Medjid,  did  him- 
self honour  by  refusing  to  give  them  up.  Nicholas 


was  furious.  But  the  Turk,  a  better  Christian  on  g!vesupthe 
this  occasion  than  the  Czar,  being  supported  by  rafofew. 
England  and  France,  refused  to  give  way,  and 
Kossuth  was  one  of  the  very  few  rebels  who  have 
died  of  old  age.  This  defiance  of  European  and 
civilised  opinion,  to  say  nothing  of  justice  and 
humanity,  by  the  autocrat  of  all  the  Russias,  had 
very  serious  consequences  in  the  not  distant  future. 
It  was  the  sort  of  thing  that  Lord  Palmerston,  as 
a  friend  of  popular  movements,  could  not  stand, 
and  it  also  aroused  the  righteous  indignation  of  the 
English  people. 

Nowhere  did  the  storm  of  1848  rage  with  more  1848. 
severity  than  in  Italy.     The  Italian  Peninsula  was  Sn^1 
subject  to   the   double  influence   of  the   French 
revolution  and  the  Austrian  revolt.     In  the  month 
of  March  the  Milanese  rose,  and  drove  out  Marshal 
Radetzky,  the  Austrian  Governor.      In  the  same 
month  a  Provisional  Government  was  formed  in 
Venice,  and  a  Republic  was  proclaimed,  after  an  The  Be- 
interval  of  fifty  years,  under  Daniele  Manin.     A  vlnetian  e 
few  days  afterwards,  Charles  Albert,  the  King  of 
Sardinia,  took  Peschiera  from  the  Austrians.     In 
the  Papal  States  the  movement  was  active,  and  on 
the    1st  of  May  the  Pope,  who   still  posed  as  a 
Liberal,  was  driven  to  declare  war  against  Austria. 
He  set  up  a  Liberal  Government,  but  on  the  15th 
of    November    his    Minister,    Count    Rossi,    was 
murdered,    and   he   himself  withdrew   in  a  panic 

VOL.  I  H 


98    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  from  Rome  to  Gaeta.      Meanwhile  the  Sicilians 
nad  taken  up  arms  against  Ferdinand  the  Second, 
afterwards  infamous  as  "  King  Bomba,"  a  cruel  and 
superstitious  bigot.      The   King,  under   pressure, 
granted  the  Sicilians  a  Constitution,  the  Constitu- 
tion of  1812,  which  was  based  on  a  document  of 
the   fourteenth    century,    not    unlike   our   Magna 
Charta.     In  spite  of  this  propitiatory  measure  the 
Sicilian  Parliament  elected  as  King  of  Sicily  the 
Duke  of  Genoa,  younger  son  of  Charles  Albert, 
but  he  declined  the  honour.     The  revolution,  how- 
Reduction    ever,  was  premature,  and  Messina  was  reduced  to 

submission  by  Ferdinand  with  such  atrocious  bar- 
barism that  the  English  and  French  Admirals  on 
the  station  felt  bound  to  interfere  on  behalf  of 
common  humanity. 

1849.  The  hopes  of  Italian  freedom  and  independence 
which  had  been  raised  in  1848  were  blighted  in 
1849.      On  the  24th  of  March  in  that  year,  the 
veteran   Marshal    Radetzky,   perhaps    the    oldest 
general  who  ever  won  a  battle,  defeated  the  Pied- 
Defeat  of     montese    army   at    Novara,    and    Charles    Albert 
Aibertsat     abdicated  in  favour  of  his  son,  Victor  Emmanuel, 

ara-      the   future   liberator   of  Italy.      A    month    later 

Palermo   surrendered   to   General   Filangieri,  and 

the  Sicilian  insurrection  was  at  an  end.     On  the 

3rd  of  July  General  Oudinot,  who  had  been  sent 

The  French  on  an  expedition  to  Civita  Vecchia,  entered  Rome, 

of  Kome.     and  the  Roman  Republic,  Mazzini's  Republic,  was 

suppressed  by  the  troops  of  Republican   France. 

Kwapture   Venice  was   retaken   by  Austria  on  the  28th  of 

August,  and  Manin  fled  from  Italy.     After  Novara 

Palmerston  did  what  he  could  to  secure  lenient 

terms  for  the  Italians,  and  to  reduce  the  amount  of 

fto™ser"      ^ne  indemnity  claimed  by  Austria.     There  can  be 

uaiportof   httle  doubt  that  if  England  had  stood  aloof  France 

would  have  intervened  alone,  and  a  European  war 

would  have  ensued.     The  most  serious  and  formal 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION      99 

assault  upon  Palmerston's  Italian  policy  was  made  1849. 
in  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  20th  of  July  1849, 
by  Lord  Brougham,  who  moved  a  number  of 
resolutions  condemning  the  Government,  first, 
because  they  had  supported  Italy  against  Austria, 
and,  secondly,  because  they  had  favoured  Sicily 
against  the  King  of  Naples.  Lord  Brougham  made 
a  very  long,  and  a  very  discursive  speech.  But  his 
extravagant  egoism,  and  generally  erratic  behaviour, 
had  destroyed  his  influence,  leaving  him,  in 
Macaulay's  words,  a  dead  nettle.  Lord  Stanley  and 
Lord  Aberdeen  were  more  dangerous  antagonists. 
But  Lord  Stanley,  though  the  most  brilliant  de- 
bater in  Parliament,  wanted  ballast,  and  it  was 
often  difficult  to  see  what  he  would  be  at.  Lord 
Aberdeen,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  man  of  high 
character  and  strong  principle.  He  was  the  Lord 
exact  opposite  of  Lord  Palmerston.  At  home  a 


the  foreign  policy  of  Castlereagh  and  Metternich. 
The  Treaty  of  Vienna  was  his  diplomatic  bible, 
and  he  did  not  acknowledge  that  Italy  had  a  right 
to  exist.  He  thought  that  the  King  of  Sardinia 
was  a  wanton  aggressor  for  invading  Lombardy, 
and  that  nationality  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
matter.  What  was  the  King  of  Sardinia's  title  to 
Genoa  ?  The  same  Treaty  of  Vienna  which  he 
violated  in  attacking  Lombardy.  And  so  on,  and 
so  forth.  Lord  Brougham  exhausted  the  language 
of  vituperation  in  speaking  of  Italian  Liberals,  and 
Lord  Stanley  described  the  independence  of  Italy 
as  an  idle  dream.  Lord  Lansdowne,  Lord  Minto, 
and  Lord  Carlisle  were  not  equal  to  the  three 
Leaders  of  the  Opposition.  But  they  managed 
by  dint  of  proxies  to  secure  a  majority  of  12  votes. 
In  the  House  of  Commons  Palmerston  had  it  all 
his  own  way,  and  nothing  made  him  more  popular 
there  than  his  successful  support  of  the  Hungarian 


100   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  refugees,  who  escaped  the  vengeance  of  Austria  and 
Russia.  Bern,  the  Polish  General  of  Hungarian 
troops,  settled  in  Turkey,  and  adopted  the  Moham- 
medan faith.  Kossuth,  the  Hungarian  chief,  after 
enjoying,  or  enduring,  the  protection  of  the  Sultan 
for  two  years,  came  to  England,  and  made  some 
stir  there,  as  we  shall  see.  Palmerston  was 
almost  as  strongly  Hungarian  as  he  was  Italian. 
"  Opinions,"  he  said  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
after  the  Hungarians  had  been  crushed  by  the 
forces  of  the  Czar,  "opinions  are  stronger  than 
armies."  Pascal  had  said  much  the  same  thing 
before  him.  But  neither  Bright  nor  Cobden  could 
have  expressed  more  strongly  a  truth  which 
Napoleon  discovered  to  his  cost,  and  Carlyle  was 
never  able  to  understand.  Scarcely  any  one  knew 
a*  ^ie  time  how  vehement  was  Palmerston's  hatred 
°^  Austria,  or  at  least  how  vehemently  he  expressed 
it  in  his  private  correspondence.  Mr.  Evelyn 
Ashley  has  printed  some  of  the  letters  which,  as 
Sir  Spencer  Walpole  tells  us  in  his  Life  of  Lord 
John  Russell,  almost  drove  Lord  Ponsonby,  the 
British  Ambassador  at  Vienna,  into  resignation. 
"  My  dear  Ponsonby,"  he  wrote  on  the  9th  of 
September  1849,  "the  Austrians  are  really  the 
greatest  brutes  that  ever  called  themselves  un- 
deservedly by  the  name  of  civilised  men." x  Three 
weeks  later  he  wrote  to  Lord  Normanby  at  Paris, 
and,  after  expressing  his  own  views,  which  ulti- 
mately prevailed,  added,  with  engaging  candour, 
"But  all  this  is  only  my  own  personal  opinion, 
and  I  cannot  answer  for  the  Broad  Brims  of  the 
Cabinet."  Lord  Ponsonby  had  strong  Austrian 
sympathies,  and  Lord  Palmerston  admonished  him 
on  the  subject.  "  I  write  you  this,"  he  says  on  the 
27th  of  November  1849,  "  and  desire  you  to  do  your 
best,  though  I  hear  from  many  quarters  that  you 

1  Ashley's  Life  of  Palmerston,  vol.  i.  p.  139. 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION    101 

oppose  instead  of  furthering  the  policy  of  your  1849. 
Government,  and  that  you  openly  declare  that  you 
disapprove  of  our  course.  No  diplomatist  ought 
to  hold  such  language  as  long  as  he  holds  his 
appointment."  It  is  extraordinary  that  Lord 
Ponsonby  did  not  resign.  Throughout  this  affair 
Palmerston  was  acting  with  France.  But  the 
French  occupation  of  Rome  he  pronounced  in 
Parliament  to  be  "  unfortunate."  It  ill  became  a 
Republican  Government,  in  which  M.  de  Tocque- 
ville  was  Foreign  Minister,  to  suppress  a  Republic 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps.  Mazzini  and  Gari- 
baldi were,  at  least,  as  worthy  of  respect  as 
Lamartine  and  Ledru  Rollin.  That  Austria  would 
have  moved  if  France  had  not  is  uncertain  and 
immaterial.  Austria  had  enough  of  Italy  on  her 
hands,  and  Austria  was  not  a  Republic.  Lord 
Palmerston's  view  was  that  the  Pope  should  not 
be  allowed  to  re-enter  Rome  until  he  had  promised 
to  govern  in  a  constitutional  fashion.  But  a  con- 
stitutional Pope  is  almost  as  unthinkable  as  a 
constitutional  God. 

It  is  said  that  Lord  Palmerston,  being  asked  in 
1849  the  difference  between  business  and  occupa- 
tion, replied  that  the  French  were  in  occupation 
of  Rome,  but  they  had  no  business  to  be  there. 
Business  or  no  business,  they  remained  there 
for  nearly  twenty  years.  Even  Lord  Palmerston 
did  not  attempt  to  interfere  with  the  French 
Revolution.  He  had  no  particular  love  for  the 
Republic,  and  he  did  not  believe  in  its  stability. 
But  he  hated  the  Orleanists,  especially  Louis 
Philippe,  whom  he  saw,  with  ill -concealed  and 
rather  brutal  satisfaction,  reduced  to  drinking  bad 
water  and  sour  beer  at  Claremont,  instead  of  claret 
and  champagne  at  the  Tuileries.  Just  before  the 
fall  of  "  the  popular  king,"  who  was  liked  without 
being  respected,  the  British  Government  introduced 


102   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  a  measure  for  enabling  themselves  to  interfere  with 
more  effect  in  European  politics.  On  the  17th  of 
February  1848,  nine  months  earlier  than  the  flight 
of  the  Pope,  Lord  Lansdowne  moved  in  the  House 
of  Lords  the  second  reading  of  a  Bill  for  authorising 
erston  diplomatic  relations  with  the  Court  of  Rome.  This 
court  of  was  really  Palmerston's  Bill,  and,  indeed,  the  whole 
of  his  foreign  policy  was  played,  as  he  himself  put 
it,  off  his  own  bat.  The  Bill  was  the  direct  result 
of  Lord  Minto's  singular  mission  to  Italy  in  1847, 
and  on  principle  it  was  difficult  to  oppose.  The 
Pope  was  a  temporal  sovereign,  and  five-sixths  of 
the  Irish  people  owned  him  as  their  spiritual  head. 
Some  lawyers  thought  that  the  Queen  might, 
without  statutory  authority,  appoint  an  envoy  to 
Rome,  and  receive  an  ambassador  from  the  Pope. 
But  the  balance  of  opinion  was  the  other  way,  and 
it  was  considered  safer  to  proceed  by  legislation. 
The  principle  of  the  measure  was  supported  by 
Lord  Stanley,  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  Bishop 
Thirlwall.  Its  only  prominent  antagonist  was  Bishop 
Philpotts  of  Exeter,  a  militant  churchman  of  the 
fiercest  type,  who  inspired  awe  without  inspiring 
esteem.  No  worse  charge  was  ever  made  against 
"Harry  of  Exeter"  than  that  he  had  supported 
Catholic  Emancipation  to  get  a  bishopric  from 
the  Duke.  But  in  controversy  he  did  not  always 
display  a  Christian  temper,  and  he  seemed  to  be 
rather  orthodox  than  pious.  Bishop  Thirlwall's 
philosophic  intellect  almost  always  took  a  statesman- 
like view  of  political  questions,  and  Lord  Stanley, 
having  been  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland,  knew  the 
value  of  a  good  understanding  with  the  Vatican. 
Although  the  Bill  was  read  a  second  time  by  the 
Peers  without  a  division,  a  curious  mishap  befell  it 
in  Committee,  which  ultimately  rendered  it  useless 
for  all  practical  purposes.  Lord  Eglinton,  whose 
name  is  known  in  fields  more  attractive  than 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION    103 

politics,1  carried,  by  a  majority  of  3  votes,  an  amend- 1848. 
merit  providing  that  the  Papal  representative  at 
the  Court  of  St.  James  should  not  be  a  priest. 
The  Bill  was  read  a  second  time  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  17th  by  a  majority  of  79,  and 
Mr.  Gladstone  spoke  in  support  of  it.  But  the 
Pope  declined  to  send  a  layman  to  represent  him, 
and  it  became  a  dead  letter.  Mr.  Disraeli,  who 
was  perhaps  the  best  Leader  of  Opposition  that 
the  House  of  Commons  has  ever  seen,  took  the 
opportunity  of  commenting  upon  Lord  Minto's 
roving  errand  "  to  teach  politics  to  the  country  in 
which  Machiavelli  was  born." 

Lord  Palmerston  made  one  use  of  the  French  Paime 
Revolution  which  would  probably  not  have  oc- 
curred  to  any  one  else.  That  it  was  caused  by  Sl 
corruption  and  misgovernment  there  can  be  little 
doubt.  Louis  Philippe  was  as  much  opposed  to 
political  reform  in  France  as  Palmerston  himself 
was  opposed  to  it  in  England,  and  Guizot  sup- 
ported him  in  his  opposition.  To  Mr.  Disraeli  the 
origin  of  the  movement  which  upset  the  French 
Monarchy  was  plain  enough.  He  put  it  all  down 
to  the  secret  societies.  He  was  always  much 
impressed  with  the  power  of  these  bodies,  which  he 
afterwards  described,  with  almost  tedious  minute- 
ness, in  Lot  hair.  "The  two  characteristics  of 
these  confederations,"  he  says  in  his  Life  of  Lord 
George  Bentinck,  "  which  now  cover  Europe  like  a 
network,  are  war  against  property  and  hatred  of 
the  Semitic  revelation."  2  "  It  is,"  he  says  again, 
"  the  manoeuvres  of  these  men,  who  are  striking  at 
property  and  Christ,  which  the  good  people  of  this 
country,  who  are  so  accumulative  and  so  religious, 

1  He  was  the  master  of  the  ceremonies  at  the  Eglinton  Tourna- 
ment in  1837,  when  Sheridan's  grand-daughter,  Lady  Seymour,  after- 
wards Duchess  of  Somerset,  won  the  prize  for  beauty. 

2  Page  553. 


104   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  recognise  and  applaud  as  the  progress  of  the  Liberal 
cause."1  The  men  of  February  were  not  irre- 
ligious— quite  the  contrary.  They  carried  a  crucifix 
bare-headed  in  procession  through  the  streets, 
exclaiming,  "  He  is  the  Master  of  us  all ! "  Mon- 
seigneur  d'Afre,  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  was 
accidentally,  not  intentionally,  shot.  But  Mr. 
Disraeli  did  not  over-estimate  the  influence  of 
the  secret  societies.  Louis  Napoleon  belonged  to 
one  of  them,  the  Carbonari,  and  this  fact  had  much 
to  do  with  his  Italian  policy  in  later  years.  Lord 
Palmerston,  however,  stuck  to  his  point,  and  in- 
sisted that  revolution  in  France  was  the  conse- 
quence of  neglecting  reform.  He  quoted  Canning's 
remark  that  those  who  rejected  improvement 
because  it  was  innovation  would  have  to  accept 
innovation  when  it  was  no  longer  improvement. 
He  pointed  the  moral  at  Spain,  and  directed 
March  i6.  Mr.  Bulwer,  the  British  Minister  at  Madrid,  to 
bring  it  under  the  notice  of  the  Spanish  Govern- 
ment. In  his  despatch  he  advised  the  Queen  of 
Spain  to  take  warning  by  the  French  King,  to 
adopt  constitutional  methods,  and  to  take  some 
Liberal  statesmen  into  her  councils.  The  advice 
was  excellent.  But  Lord  Palmerston's  right  to 
give  it  could  hardly  be  reconciled  with  any  known 
principles  of  international  law.  Spain  was  not 
disturbed,  and  a  sort  of  Constitution  was  nominally 
in  force.  The  Queen,  though  legally  married,  was 
a  mere  child,  and  not  a  particularly  well  behaved 
one.  Her  relations  with  Marshal  Serrano  were  the 
talk  of  Europe.  Her  mother,  Queen  Christina, 
had  recently  announced  to  an  astonished  and  un- 
edified  public  that  she  had  been  the  wife  of  one 
Munoz  for  fifteen  years,  having  married  him  three 
months  after  the  death  of  her  first  husband.  Pal- 
merston's despatch  excited  intense  indignation 

1  Page  564. 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION    105 

among  all  classes,  and  the  Foreign  Minister,  the  1848. 
Duke  of  Sotomayor,  took  the  unprecedented  step  o" 
of  returning   it   to    Mr.    Bulwer.     The   Duke  ofgg^J 
Sotomayor's  reply  was  very  much  to  the  point.  ment 
He  invited  Palmerston's  attention  to  the  state  of 
Ireland,  and  suggested  that  the   British  Cabinet 
would   be    strengthened   by   the   addition   of  Sir 
Robert  Peel.     A  few  days  afterwards  Mr.  Bulwer 
was  requested  by  the  Spanish  Government  to  leave 
Madrid,  whereupon  the  Spanish   Minister,  Senor 
Isturitz,  was  expelled  from  London.     No  further 
step  was  taken  to  obtain  redress,  but  Mr.  Bulwer 
was  made  a  Knight  Commander  of  the  Bath,  and 
appointed  British  Minister  at  Washington. 

An  Opposition  would  have  been  more  or  less  than 
human  if  it  had  not  made  the  most  of  such  a  case 
as  that,  and  in  both  Houses  the  Government  was 
severely  handled.  Palmerston  had  acted  without  the 
knowledge  of  the  Cabinet,  and  Lord  Lansdowne, 
who  had  to  defend  him,  knew  nothing,  except  what 
he  read  in  the  newspapers.  Lord  Grey  wrote  to 
the  Prime  Minister  that  he  would  not  say  a  word 
for  conduct  of  which  he  thoroughly  disapproved. 
"  Lord  Lansdowne,"  says  Greville,  "  was  in  a 
state  of  great  indignation  and  disgust ;  he  told 
the  Duke  of  Bedford  he  had  never  in  all  his  life  Lord  John-, 
been  placed  in  such  a  situation.  .  .  .  He  had  never 
read  the  despatches,  and  had  not  a  notion  how  far 
Palmerston  had  committed  himself  in  approval  of 
Bulwer.  He  said  he  had  been  to  Lord  John,  and 
told  him  this  must  never  happen  again." l  In  the 
House  of  Commons  a  vote  of  censure  was  moved 
by  Mr.  Bankes,  and  Mr.  Disraeli  dilated  on  the 
"  pernicious  system  of  Liberalism."  But  Palmerston 
was  saved  by  the  violent  behaviour  of  the  Spanish 
Government.  Many  members  who  would  other- 
wise have  voted  for  the  motion  were  deterred  by 

1  "Greville  Memoirs,"  13th  May  1848. 


106   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  fear  of  seeming  to  show  sympathy  with  the  expul- 
sion of  a  British  Minister  by  a  foreign  power.  If 
the  attitude  of  Spain  had  been  more  diplomatically 
correct,  the  Government  would  probably  have  been 
defeated,  or  Palmerston  would  have  had  to  resign. 
Palmerston,  to  do  him  justice,  never  threw  over  a 
subordinate,  but  on  this  occasion  he  did  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  Sir  Henry  Bulwer  had  not  been 
instructed  to  communicate  the  actual  despatch. 
As,  however,  he  had  clearly  been  directed  to  tell 
the  Spanish  Government  what  was  in  it,  the 
distinction  was  more  technical  than  substantial. 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  though  he  declined  to  vote  for 
the  motion,  expressed  disapproval  of  Palmerston's 
tone,  but  admitted,  oddly  enough,  that  we  had  the 
right  to  advise  Spain  on  her  internal  affairs.  He 
derived  the  right  from  the  Peninsular  War,  which 
was  more  profitable  to  the  Spanish  dynasty  than  to 
the  Spanish  people. 

palmer-  Palmerston's    foreign    policy    was    subject    to 

Italian       constant  attacks  in  Parliament.     These  onslaughts 

sympathies.  .  .  .  &    . 

were  less  formidable  in  his  own  House  than  in 
the  other.  Mr.  Disraeli,  though  his  speeches  are 
almost  always  interesting  to  read,  because  they  are 
out  of  the  ordinary  run,  was  in  those  days  apt, 
especially  in  foreign  politics,  to  alienate  his  own 
side  without  attracting  his  opponents.  But  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  Lord  Stanley,  Lord  Aberdeen, 
and  Lord  Brougham  were  a  powerful  combination. 
Agreeing  in  little  else,  they  were  animated  by  a 
common  hatred  of  Italy  and  a  common  love  of 
Austria.  Their  language  about  the  King  of 
Sardinia  was  violent  in  the  extreme,  and  in  the 
circumstances  most  unjust.  Charles  Albert  was 
not  a  strong  man,  and  he  went  to  war  without 
counting  the  cost.  But  in  attempting  to  drive  the 
Austrians  out  of  Lombardy  he  consulted  the 
wishes  of  his  subjects,  and  the  claims  of  nationality 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION    107 

to  recognition.  Lord  Palmerston  was  frankly  1343. 
arid  unreservedly  Italian.  He  made  no  secret  of 
his  belief  that  the  Austrians  were  intruders  not 
only  in  Lombardy  but  also  in  Venetia.  They 
were  aliens  in  race  and  language.  It  would  be  far 
better  for  them  to  retire  behind  the  Alps,  their 
natural  boundary.  In  a  striking  and  forcible 
image  he  said  that  her  Italian  dominions  were  to 
Austria  not  the  shield  of  Ajax,  but  the  heel  of 
Achilles.  He  was,  as  usual,  too  sanguine.  But 
his  policy  was  founded  upon  prescience,  and  has 
been  vindicated  by  time.  He  did  not  live  to  see 
the  full  triumph  of  his  principles.  Yet  not  for  one 
instant  did  he  waver  in  his  wise  and  courageous 
support  of  Italy  for  the  Italians.  Lord  John 
Russell  was  heartily  with  him  on  the  main  point, 
though  as  Prime  Minister  he  found  the  Foreign 
Secretary's  independence  rather  trying,  and  the 
Queen  pronounced  it  to  be  insupportable.  There 
was,  for  instance,  the  case  of  the  Sicilian  arms, 


supplied   to   the   insurgents   in  Sicily  during  the  thei 

ii  j?o  i  i  o  j  «      i_  r*\  j.  Insurgents. 

month  of  September  1848  by  a  Government 
contractor  named  Hood.  Hood  told  the  Sicilians 
that  he  had  no  arms  ready,  the  Government  having 
taken  them  all,  but  that  if  the  Ordnance  Depart- 
ment would  let  him  have  some  of  them  back  he 
would  send  them  to  Sicily,  and  replenish  the  official 
stores  in  a  short  time.  This  was  done  with  the 
sanction  of  Lord  Palmerston,  and  without  the 
knowledge  of  the  Prime  Minister,  the  Cabinet,  or 
the  Queen.  No  injury  was  done  to  the  public 
service.  But  a  clear  breach  of  international  law 
had  been  committed,  and  Palmerston,  under  com- 
pulsion, apologised  to  the  King.  It  will  be  seen 
that  he  was  not  long  in  taking  his  revenge. 

Both  England  and  France  intervened  actively 
during  the  progress  of  these  abortive  Italian  re- 
volutions. The  British  and  French  Admirals,  Sir 


108   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848-49.  William  Parker  and  Admiral  Baudin,  interposed 
Angio-  to  stop  the  horrible  carnage  committed  by  the 
mediation.  Neapolitan  troops  at  Messina.  In  the  north  of 
Italy  the  Western  Powers  offered  their  mediation 
between  the  Emperor  of  Austria  and  the  King  of 
Sardinia,  or  rather,  they  agreed  to  give  it  at  the 
request  of  Austria  after  the  successes  of  the  Pied- 
montese  troops  in  1848.  An  armistice  was  pro- 
mised, and  Austria  was  then  prepared  to  cede 
Lombardy.  But  Charles  Albert  and  his  advisers, 
flushed  with  victory,  asked  for  Venetia  too,  of 
which  Austria  would  not  hear.  The  mediation 
was  therefore  fruitless. 

I^pean  -^v  ^ne  GU^  °^  1849  the  European  reaction  was 
restoration,  almost  complete.  France,  indeed,  was  still  a 
Republic,  but  a  Republic  with  a  Bonaparte  at  its 
head,  and  a  Bonaparte  who  was  always  changing 
his  Ministers.  Louis  Philippe,  Guizot,  and 
Metternich  had  disappeared  from  public  life,  and 
were  living  in  exile.  But  Hungary  was  crushed, 
Vienna  was  quiet,  and  the  young  Emperor  was 
firmly  seated  on  his  throne.  Italy  was  once  more 
a  geographical  expression.  Vienna  and  Milan 
were  again  under  the  heel  of  Austria.  The  Grand 
Duke  of  Tuscany  and  the  Duke  of  Parma  had 
been  restored  by  Austrian  arms.  The  King  of 
Naples  was  again  King  of  the  Two  Sicilies.  The 
young  King  of  Sardinia  was  restricted  to  Piedmont 
and  Genoa.  Although  Pius  the  Ninth  was  still 
at  Gaeta,  the  Roman  Republic,  like  the  Venetian, 
had  passed  away.  Order  reigned  in  Berlin,  and 
Frederick  William  in  Prussia.  The  King  of 
Prussia  had  been  offered,  and  had  refused,  the 
Imperial  Crown  of  Germany.  He  refused  it 
ostensibly  because  the  offer  came  from  a  national 
assembly  of  Germans,  and  not  from  the  German 
Princes,  of  whom  he  was  himself  one.  His  real 
reason  was  fear  of  Austria,  and  Prince  Albert  was 


REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION     109 

much  disgusted  with  His  Majesty's  prudence  or  i84o. 
pusillanimity.  The  Prince  was  as  far-sighted  in 
German  aiFairs  as  Lord  Palmerston  was  in  Italian. 
He  was  an  ardent  believer  in  German  unity  under 
the  guidance  and  supremacy  of  Prussia.  He 
stood  almost  alone  then,  and  little  progress  was 
made  towards  his  ideal  before  his  death.  But  it 
seems  so  obvious  now  that  we  are  inclined  to 
underrate  the  sagacity  of  those  who  supported  it 
in  the  dark  days  of  1849. 


CHAPTER    VI 

ENGLISH    CHARTISTS   AND    IRISH    REBELS 

THE  first  French  Revolution,  the  Revolution  of 
1789,  postponed  reform  in  England  for  more  than 
forty  years.  The  second,  the  Revolution  of  1830, 
contributed  to  the  fall  of  the  Duke's  Government, 
and  the  passage  of  the  great  Reform  Bill.  The 
third,  the  Revolution  of  1848,  led  to  nothing  better 
or  worse  than  the  mass  meeting  on  Kennington 
Common,  and  the  tussle  in  the  cabbage  garden  at 
Ballingarry.  The  proposed  meeting  at  Kennington, 
which  was  actually  held  on  the  10th  of  April  1848, 
had  excited  real  and  not  altogether  groundless  alarm. 
Mr.  Feargus  O'Connor,  the  Irish  member  for  Not- 
tingham, and  editor  of  the  Northern  Star,  the  recog- 
nised organ  of  the  Chartists,  boasted  that  it  would 
consist  of  two  hundred  thousand  persons,  that  it 
would  cross  the  river  by  three  bridges,  and  that  it 
would  march  in  force  on  the  House  of  Commons 
to  present  a  petition  in  favour  of  the  Charter.  The 
The  ^  six  points  of  the  Charter  were  perfectly  legiti- 
polnt8'  mate,  and  two  of  them  have  long  since  become 
law.  They  were  annual  parliaments,  universal 
suffrage,  vote  by  ballot,  equal  electoral  districts, 
the  removal  of  the  property  qualification  for 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  payment  of 
members.  But  to  overawe  the  House  of  Commons 
by  a  display  of  numbers  was  clearly  illegal,  being 

no 


ENGLISH  CHARTISTS  111 

an  example  of  mob  law,  which,  like  martial  law,  is  1848. 
no  law  at  all.  The  Government,  in  concert  with  JJ^pjJJ:6'' 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  as  Commander-in-Chief, tions- 
took  measures  to  prevent  any  interference  with 
the  freedom  of  the  Legislature.  "  Troops  were 
brought  up  to  London,  and  arrangements  were 
made  for  quietly  posting  them  so  as  to  command 
the  approaches  to  the  House  of  Commons. 
Multitudes  of  special  constables  were  sworn  in. 
Their  entire  number  reached  one  hundred  and 
seventy  thousand.  The  Chartists  were  reminded 
that  they  were  not  the  English  people.  The 
forces  of  order  were  marshalled  against  those  of 
disorder.  The  Government  appealed  to  the  people 
to  maintain  quietness,  and  the  people  readily 
answered  the  call." a  To  praise  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  for  not  being  put  out  by  the  Chartists 
would  be  mere  impertinence.  The  whole  thing 
was  to  him  child's  play,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  the 
soldiers  never  even  appeared.  But  this  10th  of 
April  was  the  climax  of  the  Home  Secretary's 
career,  and  he  deserved  all  the  credit  he  received,  sir  George 

G  rev's 

He  did  his  utmost  to  assert  the  supremacy  of  prompt*. 
the  law  without  shedding  a  drop  of  blood,  and 
he  completely  succeeded  in  both  respects.  On 
Thursday,  the  6th  of  April,  he  gave  fair  notice 
to  the  Chartists  by  a  proclamation  declaring  that 
the  proposed  meeting  would  be  illegal,  because  it 
would  cause  terror  and  alarm.  No  proclamation 
by  an  English  Minister,  unless  it  be  expressly 
authorised  by  statute,  can  make  that  illegal  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  legal.  But  in  this  case 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  law  officers  of  the 
Crown,  Sir  John  Jervis  and  Sir  John  Romilly,  had 
given  the  Home  Secretary  sound  advice.  The 
meeting  was  illegal  for  the  reasons  stated.  It 
proved  an  utter,  and  even  a  ludicrous  failure.  The 

1  Bishop  Creigh ton's  Life  of  Sir  George  Grey,  pp.  73-74. 


112   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848,        numbers    attending    it    did    not    exceed    twenty 
Kennington  thousand,  or  one-tenth  of  what  had  been  announced. 

Common. 

Feargus  O'Connor  had  one  fatal  disqualification 
for  a  leader  of  revolt :  he  was  afraid  of  the  police. 
When  Mr.  Mayne,  the  Commissioner,  told  him 
that  the  procession  would  not  be  allowed  to  cross 
the  river,  the  truculent  agitator  thanked  the  re- 
presentative of  the  law  with  effusive  civility, 
and  advised  the  crowd  to  disperse.  They  accord- 
ingly broke  up,  and  were  further  disintegrated 
by  policemen  at  the  bridges.  The  whole  affair 
ended  in  smoke,  and  not  in  the  smoke  which 
at  that  time  accompanied  the  discharge  of 
powder.  The  conduct  of  the  Government  was, 
in  every  way,  satisfactory.  But  the  Chartist 
rising  was  put  down  by  the  people  of  London. 
Among  them,  oddly  enough,  was  Prince  Louis 
Napoleon,  who  enrolled  himself  as  a  special  con- 
stable for  the  preservation,  in  a  foreign  country, 
of  the  law  that  he  was  so  signally  to  violate  in 
his  own. 

g»  The    petition   was  brought  to   the   House  of 

petition.  Commons  in  five  cabs,  and  presented  by  Mr. 
O'Connor  in  the  ordinary  way.  It  was  investi- 
gated by  the  Committee  on  Public  Petitions,  and 
turned  out  to  be,  in  plain  English,  a  fraud.  Mr. 
O'Connor  described  it  as  having  been  signed  by 
five  millions  of  people.  The  actual  number  of 
signatures  proved  to  be  two  millions.  But  many 
of  these  were  duplicates  ;  many  more  were  in  the 
same  handwriting  ;  some  were  obviously  fictitious  ; 
while  a  few  wags  had  amused  themselves  by 
writing  the  names  of  the  Queen,  Prince  Albert, 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel. 
Chartism  never  recovered  from  the  contempt 
excited  by  this  pitiful  exposure.  It  had  lasted 
just  ten  years.  Founded  in  1838,  it  had  been  in 
the  dark  days  of  the  late  thirties  and  early  forties 


ENGLISH  CHARTISTS  113 

a  real  and  dangerous  power.  Its  most  formidable  1848. 
rival,  and  most  fatal  enemy,  was  the  Anti-Corn 
Law  League.  By  calling  attention  to  the  needs 
of  the  poor,  it  had  enlisted  the  support  of  phil- 
anthropists like  Charles  Kingsley,  who  signed  the 
petition,  and  it  had  attracted  the  not  altogether 
unsympathetic  notice  of  Thomas  Carlyle.  But 
even  so  far  back  as  1839  it  had  been  connected 
with  mere  rioting,  and  it  had  never  cut  itself 
adrift  from  crime.  Some  Chartists,  such  as  Thomas 
Cooper,  author  of  the  Purgatory  of  Suicides,  and 
Ernest  Jones,  a  justly  respected  member  of  the 
Bar,  were  punished  with  undue  and  unwarrantable 
severity.  Others,  such  as  John  Frost,  seem  to 
have  deserved  their  fate.  In  the  hands  of  a  man 
like  Feargus  O'Connor,  who  was  even  then  more 
than  half  insane,  any  movement  was  bound  to  fail, 
and  Richard  Cobden,  the  most  practical  statesman 
who  ever  refused  office,  regarded  it  with  unmiti- 
gated scorn.  Joseph  Hume  continued  courageously 
to  urge  the  principles  of  the  Charter  upon  a  reluctant 
House  of  Commons,  but  he  was  flogging  a  dead 
horse.  The  Charter  had  been  killed  by  its  friends, 
and  Hume  found  more  useful  employment  in 
criticising  the  growth  of  the  estimates.  Neither 
he  nor  Cobden  nor  Bright  were  men  to  be  de- 
terred by  the  escapades  of  fanatics  from  urging  the 
necessity  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the  working 
classes,  who  received  no  direct  benefit  from  the 
Reform  Act  of  1832.  But  the  Prime  Minister 
was  still  "  Finality  John,"  and  they  met  with  no 
encouragement  from  the  Treasury  Bench.  There 
were  Chartist  demonstrations  in  various  parts  of 
London  throughout  the  summer  of  1848,  and  in 
some  manufacturing  towns,  such  as  Leeds,  the 
distress  of  the  poorer  classes  was  extreme.  There 
were  symptoms  of  uneasiness  and  discontent  which 
might  well  make  statesmen  reflect  upon  their  duties 

VOL.  I  I 


114   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  and  responsibilities.     But,  except  in  Ireland,  there 
was  no  danger  of  civil  war. 

On  the  very  day  of  the  collapse  at  Kennington, 
^ne  Home  Secretary  moved  the  second  reading  of 
the  Crown  and  Government  Security  Bill,  now 
usually  known  as  the  Treason  Felony  Act.  The 
object  of  this  measure  was  three -fold.  First,  it 
extended  to  Ireland  the  Treason  Act  of  George 
the  Third.  Secondly,  it  created  the  new  offence 
of  treason  felony,  punishable  not  with  death,  but 
transportation,  under  which  most  State  trials  have 
since  been  conducted.  Thirdly,  it  made  "  open  and 
advised  speaking  "  with  a  seditious  intent  a  crime, 
even  though  no  overt  action  followed.  To  this 
part  of  the  Bill  the  Radicals  strongly  objected, 
pointing  out  the  restrictions  which  it  placed  upon 
freedom  of  speech,  and  it  was  enacted  for  two 
years  only,  They  were  joined  in  their  opposition 
by  Mr.  Page  Wood,  afterwards  Lord  Chancellor 
Hatherley,  whose  political  liberalism,  like  his 
religious  orthodoxy,  scarcely  ever  wavered  through- 
out a  long  life.  On  this  10th  of  April  Mr. 
Smith  O'Brien,  member  for  Limerick,  made  his 
last  appearance  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He 
opposed  the  Bill  as  an  Irish  patriot.  "  I  have,"  he 
said,  "  been  called  a  traitor.  I  do  not  profess 
disloyalty  to  the  Queen  of  England.  But  if  it  is 
disloyalty  to  profess  treason  to  this  House,  and 
to  the  government  of  Ireland  by  the  Parliament 
of  Great  Britain,  then  I  avow  the  treason."  The 
speech  was  a  foolish  one,  and  to  answer  it  was 
easy.  But  not  every  one  could  have  answered  it  as 
Sir  George  Grey  did.  Lord  Eversley,  the  Speaker 
of  that  day,  describes  the  scene — "  I  well  remember 
Sir  George  Grey's  tall  dignified  figure  standing  on 
the  floor  of  the  House,  and  the  firm  and  dignified 
manner  of  his  denunciation.  The  House  was 
electrified  by  his  speech  and  manner,  and  he  sat 


IRISH  REBELS  115 

down  in  the  midst  of  the  applause  which  greeted  i84». 
him  from  all  parts  of  the  House,  and  which  I 
never  remember  equalled  on  any  other  occasion." a 
Sir  George  Grey  was  not  a  man  of  brilliant  parts, 
or  of  original  mind.  He  was  a  type  of  the  Whig 
country  gentleman,  tempered  by  Downing  Street, 
which  has  seldom  been  a  fertile  combination.  But 
he  was  a  very  favourable  type,  and  was  often 
shown  to  foreigners  as  the  ideal  member  of  Parlia- 
ment. The  Bill  passed  with  little  opposition, 
except  to  the  clause  about  "  advised  speaking," 
and  was  supported  with  something  like  enthusiasm 
by  Peel,  who  with  unusual  irrelevancy,  but  very 
great  power,  held  up  as  a  warning  to  Englishmen 
the  evils  of  State  socialism  in  France. 

Smith  O'Brien  was  a  much  more  respectable  smith 
man  than  Feargus  O'Connor,  but  he  had  very  little  ° 
more  brains.  He  belonged  to  one  of  the  most 
ancient  families  in  Ireland,  and  his  followers  called 
him  King  of  Munster.  After  his  arrest  an  Irish 
constable  deposed  that  he  could  not  fire  on  a 
descendant  of  Irish  royalty.  He  was  a  Protestant 
in  religion,  like  John  Mitch  el,  and  had  been 
gradually  converted  from  Toryism  to  repeal.  His 
family  did  not  share  his  politics,  being  staunch 
supporters  of  the  Union.  Smith  O'Brien  had 
already  met  with  a  severe  rebuff  from  Lamartine, 
to  whom,  as  the  virtual  head  of  the  French 
Government,  he  had  appealed  at  Paris  for  aid  in 
his  struggle  with  England.  Lamartine  replied 
that  France  was,  and  desired  to  remain,  at  peace 
with  the  whole  of  the  United  Kingdom,  and  not 
merely  with  a  part  of  it.  On  the  15th  of  May  he 
was  put  upon  his  trial  for  sedition,  but  the  jury 
were  unable  to  agree.  On  the  same  occasion,  John  j0hn 
Mitchel,  a  far  abler  man,  was  convicted,  sentenced  MltcheL 
to  fourteen  years'  transportation,  and  at  once 

1  Creighton's  Life  of  Sir  George  Grey,  pp.  78-79. 


116   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  shipped  to  Bermuda,  from  which  he  was  taken 
to  Australia.  There  he  was  released  on  parole, 
but  nevertheless  escaped  to  the  United  States, 
and  fought  for  slavery.  Finally  he  returned  to 
Ireland,  and  was  elected  for  an  Irish  constituency, 
but  not  allowed  to  take  his  seat.  He  was  a 
polished  writer,  and  forcible  speaker,  who  under- 
stood the  Irish  Land  Question  far  better  than  the 
English  Government.  But  he  made  himself  im- 
possible. In  his  paper,  absurdly  called  The  United 
Irishman,  he  challenged  the  Lord  Lieutenant, 
declared  that  one  of  them  must  put  the  other 
down,  preached  civil  war,  and  even  proposed  the 
use  of  vitriol.  He  had  no  power  whatever  of 
carrying  out  his  threats,  and  perhaps  the  Lord 
Lieutenant  might  safely  have  left  him  alone.  But 
Lord  Clarendon  was  not  the  man  to  refuse  a 
challenge.  He  did  not  want  to  be  put  down 
himself,  and  so  he  put  down  John  Mitchel.  Smith 
O'Brien,  after  his  first  trial,  raised  a  few  followers 
who  came  into  collision  with  some  fifty  policemen, 
and  after  a  show  of  resistance  took  to  their  heels. 
He  himself  was  arrested  at  Thurles,  and  was 
brought  before  a  Special  Commission  at  Clonmel, 
over  which  Lord  Chief  Justice  Blackburne  pre- 
sided, on  a  charge  of  high  treason.  He  was 
convicted  on  the  7th  of  October,  and  sentenced, 
in  the  barbarous  formula  of  those  days,  to  be 
hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered.  The  sentence  was, 
after  a  writ  of  error  had  been  refused,  commuted 
by  the  Home  Secretary  to  transportation  for  life. 
But  the  convict  raised  another  legal  objection. 
He  disputed  the  right  of  the  Crown  to  alter  the 
judgment  of  the  law.  He  must,  so  he  argued,  be 
set  at  liberty  if  the  Government  did  not  choose  to 
hang,  draw,  and  quarter  him,  as  the  law  prescribed. 
To  settle  this  novel  point  a  special  Act  was  passed, 
giving  the  Crown  the  option  which  Smith  O'Brien 


IRISH  REBELS  117 

denied,  and  he  was  transported  to  Tasmania.  In  1848. 
1854  he  received  a  pardon  upon  condition  that  he 
did  not  return  to  Ireland,  and  in  1856  the  condition 
was  removed.  He  was  then  acknowledged  to  be 
what  he  had  always  in  fact  been,  perfectly  harm- 
less. Throughout  his  life  he  never  ceased  to 
behave  like  a  gentleman,  and  seldom  failed  to 
behave  like  a  fool. 

It  was  well  for  the  Whig  Government  that  they  The 
had  to  deal  with  O'Brien,  Mitchel,  and  O'Connor,  fS2<Lor 
not  with  Mazzini,  Garibaldi,  and  Kossuth.  For 
though  they  were  prompt  enough  in  repressing 
toy  treason,  their  remedial  policy  was  feeble  and 
futile.  They  passed  a  temporary  Aliens  Removal  May  *• 
Bill  for  the  United  Kingdom,  the  second  reading 
of  which  was  opposed  by  Sir  William  Molesworth, 
the  accomplished  leader  of  the  philosophical  Radi- 
cals. The  Bill  was  deemed  to  be  required  because 
it  is  a  first  principle  of  the  British  Constitution 
that  no  native  and  no  foreigner,  however  humble, 
not  under  the  sentence  of  a  Court,  can  be  taken 
from  any  part  of  the  British  Empire  against  his 
will  except  by  authority  of  Parliament,  and  it  was 
thought  desirable  that  the  Executive  should  be 
empowered  for  a  time  to  remove  the  foreign 
agents  of  revolution.  On  the  21st  of  July  Lord 
John  Russell  introduced  a  Bill  for  suspending  the 
Habeas  Corpus  Act  in  Ireland  till  the  1st  of 
March  1849.  The  Premier  did  not  rest  his  case 
upon  ordinary  statistics  of  crime  and  outrage,  such 
as  have  often  done  duty  on  similar  occasions,  but 
on  evidence  in  the  possession  of  Lord  Clarendon 
that  there  was  imminent  danger  of  armed  rebellion, 
and  that  numerous  clubs  had  been  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  organising  insurrection.  Lord  Claren- 
don had  indeed,  though  this  was  not  known  at 
the  time,  asked  for  arbitrary  powers  long  before. 
The  Bill,  which  was  undoubtedly  needed,  had  the 


I 

118   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  singular  privilege  of  being  supported  by  Peel, 
Disraeli,  and  Hume.  Mr.  Sharman  Crawford's 
amendment  for  remedial  instead  of  coercive 
measures  obtained  only  8  votes,  and  Lord 
John,  finding  himself  so  well  sustained  in  the 
lobby,  intimated  to  his  followers  that  he  should 
propose  to  take  the  remaining  stages  of  the  Bill 
at  once.  To  this  the  House  unanimously  agreed, 
and  there  was  of  course  no  difficulty  in  the  House 
of  Lords.  Yet,  even  in  1848,  the  voice  of  warning 
and  remonstrance  was  heard.  Parliament,  or  at 
least  the  House  of  Commons,  was  reminded  that 
Ireland  was  suffering  from  political  grievances  as 
well  as  social  evils.  Mr.  Bernal  Osborne,  a  forcible 
speaker,  though  not  a  man  of  weight,  denounced 
the  Irish  Government  as  a  "mock  Sovereign,  a 
Brummagem  Court,  and  a  pinchbeck  executive." 
Sir  George  Grey  admitted  that  the  established 
Church  of  Ireland  was  an  indefensible  anomaly, 
and  expressed  an  opinion,  in  which  Sir  Robert  Peel 
was  known  to  concur,  that  further  provision  should 
be  made  for  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy. 
The  first  But  these  views  or  aspirations  were  not  carried 

out.  What  the  Government  did  was  to  pass  the 
Encumbered  Estates  Bill  of  1848.  This  Bill, 
which  was  introduced  by  Lord  Chancellor  Cotten- 
ham  in  the  House  of  Lords,  provided  for  the  sale 
of  mortgaged  and  embarrassed  property  through 
the  Court  of  Chancery,  with  a  Parliamentary  title 
after  five  years.  When  the  Bill  came  down  to 
the  House  of  Commons  Sir  James  Graham  rather 
pompously  welcomed  it  as  the  means  of  restoring 
the  Roman  Catholics  to  the  land.  It  proved 
wholly  inoperative,  for  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
even  in  Ireland,  was  a  dead  weight  round  the  neck 
of  all  reform. 

By  a  singular  anomaly,  for  which  the  Constitu- 
tion had  not  provided,  Baron   Lionel   Rothschild 


Estates 
BUI. 


IRISH  REBELS  119 

remained  member  of  Parliament  for  the  City  of  1848. 
London,  although  the  terms  of  the  oath  prevented 
him  from  taking  his  seat.  Lord  John  Russell's 
Bill  for  removing  the  disabilities  of  the  Jews,  by 
permitting  them  to  swear  without  the  words  "  on 
the  true  faith  of  a  Christian,"  passed  the  House  of 
Commons  in  1848  by  substantial  majorities,  and 
went  up  to  the  House  of  Lords.  There  Lord 
Stanley  opposed  it ;  Lord  Brougham,  in  a  rather 
flippant  manner,  supported  it ;  most  of  the  bishops 
went  against  it ;  and  it  was  thrown  out  by  May  25. 
a  majority  of  35.  The  speeches  of  Bishop 
Thirlwall,  on  the  one  side,  and  Bishop  Wilber- 
force  on  the  other,  were  respectively  models  of  the 
way  in  which  a  Christian  prelate  should,  and  the 
way  in  which  he  should  not,  address  a  legislative 
assembly.  Bishop  Thirlwall  reviewed  the  history 
of  persecution  to  show  its  futility,  and  proved  how 
little  doctrinal  difference  there  was  between  a  Jew 
and  a  Unitarian.  Bishop  Wilberforce  blandly  in- 
sinuated that  Baron  Rothschild  had  paid  Lord 
John  Russell's  expenses  as  a  candidate  for  the 
city.  Lord  John  was  a  poor  man,  and  even  when 
Prime  Minister  was  largely  dependent  upon  his 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  one  of  the  richest 
men  in  England.1  But  in  the  Bishop's  suggestion 
there  was  no  sort  of  truth,  and  under  pressure 
from  Lord  Lansdowne  he  withdrew  it. 

This  year  sugar  once  more  involved  the  Govern- 
ment in  serious  danger.  As  soon  as  the  House  of 
Commons  met  after  the  Christmas  holidays,  Lord  Feb. «. 
George  Bentinck  had  moved  for  a  Select  Committee 
on  the  importation  of  sugar  and  coffee  from  the 
West  Indian  Colonies.  For  this  Committee,  which 
the  Government  weakly  granted,  there  was  no 

1  Lord  John  was  indebted  to  the  Queen  for  the  enjoyment  of  Pem- 
broke Lodge,  in  Richmond  Park,  an  ideal  cottage  for  an  overworked 
statesman,  who  could  not  in  the  session  go  far  from  London. 


The  West 

Indian 


120   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  sufficient  ground.  The  Act  of  1846  had  settled  the 
question  on  the  principles  of  Free  Trade  after  full 
committee.  an(j  ampje  discussion  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament. 
Lord  George  was  not  even  the  Leader  of  the  Pro- 
tectionist party.  He  had  been  driven  to  resign  on 
account  of  his  vote  for  the  removal  of  Jewish 
disabilities,  and  the  Marquis  of  Granby  had  been 
elected  to  succeed  him.  But  Lord  Granby  was 
a  political  cipher,  who  happened  to  be  the  eldest 
son  of  a  duke,  and  .the  real  as  distinguished  from 
the  nominal  leader  was  Mr.  Disraeli.  The  Com- 
mittee, with  Lord  George  Bentinck  in  the  chair, 
began  their  sittings  on  the  9th  of  February,  and 
took  evidence  till  the  22nd  of  May.  They  finally 
reported,  by  the  casting  vote  of  the  chairman,  that 
there  should  be  a  differential  duty  of  ten  shillings 
a  hundredweight  for  six  years  in  favour  of  colonial 
sugar.  Whatever  this  report  may  be  worth,  the 
credit  of  it  is  due  to  Lord  George  Bentinck,  whose 
indefatigable  industry  was  acknowledged  even  by 
Sir  Robert  Peel.  Of  impartiality  he  was  incap- 
able, and  he  did  not  aim  at  it.  He  worked  for 
the  interests  of  Protection,  and  he  obtained  a 
qualified  success,  though  even  this  could  not  con- 
sole him  for  the  fact  that  his  horse  Surplice,  after 
he  had  sold  it,  won  "  that  paramount  and  Olympian 
stake,"  to  quote  the  language  of  his  biographer, 
which  less  eloquent  persons  call  the  Derby.  The 
report  carried  in  the  circumstances  no  weight 
whatever,  and  a  strong  Government  would  have 
disregarded  it.  The  Government  of  Lord  John 
Russell  made  a  proposal  which  could  not  be  logi- 
cally defended,  and  which  pleased  nobody  at  the 
time,  though  Mr.  Disraeli  three  years  afterwards 
described  it  as  "temperate  and  statesmanlike." 
The  duty  on  foreign  sugar  was  to  continue  as 
fixed  by  the  Act  of  1846.  The  duty  on  colonial 
sugar  was  to  be  immediately  reduced,  with  the 


IRISH  REBELS  121 

result  that  there  would  be  a  gradually  diminishing  i848. 
difference  in  favour  of  the  Colonies  till  1854,  when 
there  would  be  a  uniform  duty  of  ten  shillings  a 
hundredweight.  This  miserable  compromise  was 
only  adopted  in  a  full  House  by  a  majority  of 
15  votes.  It  was  inconsistent  not  merely  with 
the  Act  of  1846,  but  also  with  the  declaration  of 
adherence  to  that  Act  made  by  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  in  granting  the  Committee.  It 
was  accompanied  by  a  loan  of  half  a  million,  alike 
unnecessary  and  inadequate,  for  the  importation  of 
free  labour.  It  was  denounced  from  the  Protec- 
tionist side  by  Mr.  Disraeli  and  Mr.  Herries.  Among 
the  free  traders  who  condemned  it  were  Hume, 
Bright,  Cobden,  Villiers,  Graham,  and  Peel.  Sir 
Robert  Peel  was  as  consistent  as  Mr.  Cobden, 
though  in  a  different  way.  His  hatred  of  slavery 
blinded  him  to  the  fact  that  Protection  was  of  no  use 
to  the  slave,  and  on  this  single  question  he  agreed 
with  the  Protectionists,  though  he  would  not  vote* 
with  them  lest  he  should  turn  the  Government  out. 

This    was    Lord    George    Bentinck's    greatest  Lord  George 

,  .  ,      .  u-        1  -n.  J'       Bentinck 

achievement,  and  it  was  his  last.  It  was  d  is- and  Lord 
figured  by  one  of  those  violent  attacks,  imputing 
personal  motives  of  the  basest  kind,  which  he 
habitually  made  upon  his  political  opponents.  A 
stupid  blunder  of  a  clerk  in  the  Colonial  Office 
prevented  an  important  despatch  from  being  de- 
livered to  the  West  Indian  Committee.  Lord 
George,  on  discovering  the  error,  at  once  charged 
Mr.  Hawes,  the  Under- Secretary  for  the  Colonies, 
and  Lord  Grey,  the  Secretary  of  State,  with 
deliberate  fraud.  Mr.  Hawes  defended  himself 
with  promptitude  and  spirit.  But  of  course  the 
brunt  of  the  accusation  fell  upon  Lord  Grey. 
Lord  Grey  was  subject  to  just  censure  for  his 
narrow-minded  arrogance  and  domineering  temper. 
But  a  man  of  stricter  integrity  never  presided  over 


122   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  an  English  Department,  and  it  is  impossible  to 
say  more.  He  retorted  in  the  House  of  Lords 
with  a  bitterness  which,  if  not  commendable,  was 
at  least  natural ;  and  Lord  Stanley  did  himself  no 
good  by  taking  up  the  cause  of  Lord  George.  In 
the  House  of  Commons  Lord  John  Russell  in- 
censed the  Protectionists  by  remarking,  with  the 
dry  severity  characteristic  of  him,  that  the  prac- 
tices imputed  to  his  colleagues  did  not  belong  to 
English  statesmen,  though  they  were  too  common 
in  the  profession  of  which  Lord  George  Bentinck 
had  been  a  member.  He  afterwards  explained 
this  as  a  complimentary  allusion  to  Lord  George's 
success  in  detecting  the  fraudulent  entry  of  a 
horse  called  Running  Rein.  Lord  John  had 
better  have  spared  his  reference,  which  was  un- 
necessary and  immaterial.  But  in  forming  an 
estimate  of  Lord  George  Bentinck's  character, 
and  of  his  motives  for  imputing  baseness  to  others, 
we  cannot  wholly  disregard  the  testimony  of  Mr. 
Greville,  who  was  his  cousin,  and  though  he  had 
quarrelled  with  him,  knew  him  well.1  Besides  the 
Report  of  the  West  Indian  Committee,  Lord 
George  Bentinck  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  the 
Bill  for  the  repeal  of  those  Navigation  Laws 
which  so  long  hampered  the  carrying  trade  of 
Great  Britain  abandoned  for  the  year.  His  satis- 
faction must  have  been  none  the  less  because  Peel 
had  made  one  of  his  finest  speeches  in  support  of 
the  Bill,  and  had  been  received  with  a  disgraceful 
uproar  on  rising  to  speak. 

1  Mr.  Reeve,  the  editor  of  the  "  Greville  Memoirs/'  has  suppressed  the 
details  of  Bentinck's  racing  transactions.  Greville's  words  are  these, 
and  they  ought  to  find  a  place  in  any  book  which  records  his  accusa- 
tions against  other  people:  "Oh,  for  the  inconsistency  of  human 
nature,  the  strange  compound  and  medley  of  human  motives  and 
impulses,  when  the  same  man  who  crusaded  against  the  tricks  and 
villainies  of  others  did  not  scruple  to  do  things  quite  as  bad  as  the 
worst  of  the  misdeeds  which  he  so  vigorously  and  unrelentingly 
attacked."—"  Greville  Memoirs,"  28th  Sept.  1848. 


IRISH  REBELS  123 

On  the  25th  of  August  the  Chancellor  of  the  isis. 
Exchequer  introduced  his  third    Budget  for   the  JJiJj^  rf 
year,   and   promised   a   reduction  of  expenditure, 1848- 
instead  of  the  addition   threatened  in  February. 
This   was    an   unusual   date   even   for   a    supple- 
mentary Budget,  and  the  reduction  did  not  clear 
away  the  deficit.     There  were  still  two  millions 
to  be  borrowed  without  any  plausible  excuse,  and 
against  the  convictions  of  the  very  men  who  pro- 
posed the  loan.     The  session  closed  early  in  Sep-  Disraelis 
tember   with  a   slashing  review   by  Mr.   Disraeli,  epuog™! 
suggested  by  Lord  George  Bentinck,  of  all  that 
the  Government  had  failed  to  do.    It  was  modelled 
on  the  similar  performances  of  his  patron  Lord 
Lyndhurst  during  the  administration  of  Lord  Mel- 
bourne,  and  if  less  graceful  was   more  amusing. 
"  In  France  you  have  a  Republic  without  Repub- 
licans.    In  Germany  you  have  an  Empire  without 
an  Emperor.     And  this  is  progress."     Such  is  a 
fair  sample  of  his  style.     It  did  little  or  no  harm  to 
the  Government.     But  it  increased  the  oratorical 
reputation  of  its  author,  and  that  after  all  was  its 
object. 

A  few  days  after  the  end  of  the  longest  session  Death  of 
then  known,  on  the  21st  of  September,  Lord  George  BeStffi?" 
Bentinck  died  very  suddenly  while  walking  from 
Welbeck  to  Clumber.    He  left  nothing  behind  him. 
Like  a  meteor,  he  blazed  suddenly  out  of  the  political 
horizon,  and  then  disappeared  into  darkness  for  ever. 
Lord  Melbourne   died   two  months   later,  in   his  of  Lord 
seventieth  year.     Lord  Melbourne's  work  was  done  NOT.  w™6* 
when  he  had  completed  the  political  education  of 
the  Queen,  and  after  his  retirement  from  office  in 
1841  the  public  heard  very  little  of  him.    In  private 
life  he  must  have  been  the  most  delightful  of  com- 
panions.    He  was  an  omnivorous  reader  of  ancient 
and  modern  authors,  being  both  a  scholar  and  a 
linguist.     He  had  a  memory  almost  as  wonderful  as 


124   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  Macaulay's,  and  far  more  humour.  His  witty, 
original  phrases,  always  spontaneous  and  appro- 
priate, were  not  mere  epigrams,  but  the  ripe  and  rich 
fruit  of  wisdom  and  experience.  He  had  an  odd  taste 
for  theology,  quite  unconnected  with  any  dogmatic 
belief,  and  his  love  of  literature  amounted  to  a 
passion.  There  has  hardly  been  in  political  history 
quite  such  another  graft  of  the  bookworm  on 
the  man  of  the  world.  Lord  Melbourne  departed 
on  the  threshold  of  old  age.  A  few  days  after- 
ot  charies  wards  died  in  the  prime  of  life  Charles  Buller, 
Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Poor  Law,  the  friend 
and  secretary  of  Lord  Durham,  the  friend  and 
pupil  of  Carlyle.  The  legend  that  he  was  the  real 
author  of  Lord  Durham's  Canadian  Report  rests 
on  no  sufficient  ground.  But  he  was  a  brilliant 
speaker  in  Parliament,  and  had  just  begun  to 
show  that  he  was  equally  capable  of  administra- 
tion when  he  passed  suddenly  away.  Buller's 
profession  was  the  law.  But  he  deserted  the  Bar 
for  the  House  of  Commons,  where,  as  in  society, 
he  became  extremely  popular.  His  sense  of  the 
ludicrous  was  almost  too  keen,  and  he  indulged 
his  propensity  to  mockery  with  indiscriminate 
freedom.  Yet  his  disposition  was  as  kindly  as  his 
character  was  honourable,  and  his  friends  hoped 
that  the  sobering  effect  of  office  would  redeem  him 
from  the  reproach  of  flippancy,  to  which  alone  he 
was  exposed. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    ERA    OF   RETRENCHMENT 

1849  was  almost  as  great  a  year  for  Free  Trade  as  1849. 
1846.    At  the  opening  of  the  year  Lord  Auckland, 
the  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  died,  and  Lord 
John  offered  the  place  to  Sir  James  Graham,  the  wwg  over- 
staunchest  free  trader  among  the  Peelites,  except  £?•!£« 
Sir  Robert  Peel   himself.     Graham  declined  the01 
offer,  and  the  Admiralty  was  then  given  to  Sir 
Francis  Baring,  a  Whig  of  the  narrowest  type. 

The  session  opened  on  the  3rd  February  with 
a  joint  attack  by  Lord  Stanley  in  the  House  of 
Lords  and  by  Mr.  Disraeli  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons upon  the  economic  policy  of  the  Government 
— in  fact,  upon  Free  Trade.  But  the  affair  was  Bad  tactics 
mismanaged  by  Lord  Stanley,  who  drafted  an  o 
amendment  to  the  Address,  which  was  moved  in 
both  Houses.  This  motion,  handed  to  Mr. 
Disraeli,1  and  by  him  to  the  Speaker  at  the  last 
moment,  in  Lord  Stanley's  own  handwriting,  con- 
tained an  express  reference  to  foreign  affairs, 
though  the  gist  of  it  was  directed  to  the  "  pro- 
gressive depression  of  agricultural  and  colonial 
interests."  The  result  was  peculiar.  In  the  House 
of  Lords,  where  Lord  Lansdowne  gave  a  most 
revolting  account  of  the  atrocities  perpetrated  in 

1  This  was  a  formal  recognition  of  Mr.  Disraeli  as  leader  of  the 
Protectionist  party  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Lord  Stanley  would 
have  preferred  Herries,  but  the  party  insisted  on  Disraeli,  and  Lord 
Granby  retired  in  his  favour. — "Greville  Memoirs/'  7th  Feb.  1849. 

125 


126   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  Messina  by  the  Neapolitan  troops  under  the  white 
flag,  Ministers,  supported  by  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington, had  a  majority  of  2.  In  the  House  of 
Commons,  where  Lord  Palmerston's  foreign  policy 
was  thoroughly  popular,  the  amendment  was  with- 
drawn. Thus  a  clear  issue  between  Free  Trade 
and  Protection  was  avoided.  It  was,  however, 
soon  raised  upon  the  Bill  for  the  repeal  of  the 

ofhtheepcal   Navigation    Laws,1    again     brought    in    by    Mr. 

£^'3gation  Labouchere,  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade. 
From  the  repeal  of  these  laws,  which  was  the 
practical  completion  of  Free  Trade,  dates  the  com- 
mercial supremacy  of  Great  Britain  during  the  next 
fifty  years,  and  her  virtual  monopoly  of  the  carrying 
trade.  The  Navigation  Laws  provided  in  substance 
that  foreign  goods  must  be  imported  either  in 
British  ships  or  in  the  ships  of  the  country  from 
which  they  came,  and  they  also  restricted  the 
employment  of  foreign  sailors  in  the  merchant 
service.  The  Bill  was  read  a  second  time  in  the 

March  is.  House  of  Commons  by  a  majority  of  56,  after 
a  strange  speech  from  Mr.  Gladstone,  who, 
free  trader  and  Peelite  as  he  was,  perversely 
insisted  that  the  principle  of  reciprocity  should 
in  this  particular  instance  be  applied.  On  the 
23rd  of  April,  the  day  fixed  for  the  third 
reading,  Sir  James  Graham,  an  alarmist  of  the 
highest  calibre,  made  a  profound  impression  upon 
the  House  by  predicting  that,  if  the  Bill  were  not 
carried,  Canada  would  be  lost  to  the  Empire.  The 
Canadians,  he  said,  were  only  willing  to  accept  the 
sacrifice  of  protection  in  their  favour  if  it  were  not 
employed  against  them.  The  real  struggle,  how- 
ever, was  in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  Government 
were  determined  to  pass  the  Bill,  which  did  some- 

1  The  Navigation  Act  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  principal  statute 
on  the  subject,  was  aimed  at  the  carrying  trade  of  the  Dutch,  then  the 
largest  in  the  world. 


THE  ERA  OF  RETRENCHMENT     127 

thing  to  redeem  their  political  reputation,  and  Lord  1349. 
Lansdowne  intimated,  not  obscurely,  that  if  they 
were  defeated  they  would  resign.  On  the  other 
hand,  Lord  Stanley  exerted  the  utmost  powers  of  his 
eloquence  against  the  Bill,  and  went  so  far  as  to 
reprove  the  Duke  of  Wellington  for  not  supporting 
him.  The  conqueror  of  Napoleon  was  scarcely  the 
man  to  be  frightened  by  the  Rupert  of  debate,  for 
whose  classical  oratory  he  did  not  care  "  one  two- 
penny damn."  The  Duke  disliked  the  Bill,  and 
would  have  voted  against  it  on  its  merits.  But  as 
Commander -in -Chief  he  would  not  oppose  the 
Government,  and  he  was  sincerely  convinced  that 
Protection  could  not  be  revived.  Lord  Brougham  Lord 
thundered  against  the  measure,  and  vainly  en-  "consist- 

^•^  *^  cncv 

deavoured  to  prove  that  he  was  consistent  as  a 
free  trader  in  opposing  it.  But  the  consistency  of 
Lord  Brougham  had  become  a  joke,  and  rather  a 
bad  joke.  His  oddities  and  his  vanities,  such  as 
his  whimsical  desire  to  become  a  French  citizen, 
were  an  inexhaustible  theme  for  the  delightful 
pencil  of  John  Leech.  Brougham's  great  days 
were  spent  in  the  House  of  Commons.  As  Lord 
Chancellor  he  was  a  prodigy,  and  on  the  whole 
a  beneficent  one.  After  his  exclusion  from  office 
by  Lord  Melbourne  in  1835,  he  lost  his  balance, 
and,  except  for  the  active  part  he  took  in  the 
repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  the  rest  of  his  life 
was  wasted  in  multifarious  ways.  On  this  occasion 
he  was  joined  by  Lord  Lyndhurst,  who  broke 
through  his  long  silence  to  plead  earnestly  for  the 
remaining  fetters  on  commerce.  The  strongest 
card  which  the  Opposition  could  play  was  the 
authority  of  Adam  Smith,  who,  while  admitting 
that  "  the  act  of  navigation  is  not  favourable  to 
foreign  commerce,  or  to  the  growth  of  that 
opulence  which  can  arise  from  it,"  adds  that,  "  as 
defence  is  of  much  more  importance  than  opulence, 


128   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  the  act  of  navigation  is,  perhaps,  the  wisest  of  all 
the  commercial  regulations  of  England."  l  The 
praise  was  faint,  but  such  as  it  was  it  was  unde- 
served. The  great  defensive  force  of  the  British 
Empire  is  the  Navy,  and  the  Navy  as  it  existed  in 
the  time  of  the  Navigation  Laws  is  not  fit  to  be 
compared  with  the  Navy  of  to-day.  Homer  some- 
times nods,  and  Adam  Smith  could  afford  to  indulge 
in  a  nap.  The  second  reading  of  the  Bill  was 
carried  by  a  majority  of  10,  and  it  would  be  in- 
teresting to  know  how  many  of  the  Peers  who 
voted  Not  Content  had  read  the  Wealth  of  Nations. 
The  Bishops  turned  the  scale  in  favour  of  com- 
mercial freedom.  On  the  third  reading  the  Oppo- 
sition walked  out,  and  the  Bill  then  became  law. 
Reduction  A  large  reduction  of  the  Estimates  was  promised 
tur?1*1  l"  in  the  Queen's  Speech  for  1849.  Cobden  and 
financial  reform  had  for  the  moment  triumphed. 
Feb.  as.  Cobden  himself,  however,  was  not  satisfied,  and 
moved  that  the  expenditure  of  the  country  should 
be  cut  down  by  the  definite  sum  of  ten  millions, 
thus  bringing  it  back  to  the  point  at  which  it  stood 
in  1835.  This  motion,  less  practical,  or  at  least 
less  business-like,  than  most  of  Mr.  Cobden's,  was 
rejected  by  275  votes  to  78.  But  Sir  Charles 
Wood  did  not  meet  it  with  a  mere  negative.  He 
showed  that  he  had  saved  a  million  and  a  half, 
chiefly  by  knocking  ten  thousand  men  off  the 
army,  despite  the  protests  of  the  Duke.  Mr. 
Disraeli,  a  few  days  later,  tried  a  different  tack, 
which  would  assuredly  not  have  led,  as  we  know 
by  bitter  experience,  to  public  economy.  He 
proposed  that  half  the  local  rates  should  be  paid 
by  the  Treasury.  Cobden  supported  the  Govern- 
ment against  Disraeli,  as  Disraeli  had  supported 
the  Government  against  Cobden,  and  the  motion 
was  defeated  by  91.  The  Chancellor  of  the 

1   Wealth  of  Nations,  book  iv.  chapter  ii. 


THE  ERA  OF  RETRENCHMENT     129 

Exchequer,  whose  theories  were  sound  enough, 
proved  that  the  grant  in  aid  would  be  no  relief 
to  the  farmers,  inasmuch  as  the  rates  were  paid  by 
the  landlords.  This  speech  of  Sir  Charles  Wood's 
was  pronounced  by  Peel  to  be  not  only  a  good  but 
a  great  one.  In  the  summer  Mr.  Disraeli  returned  jmy  2. 
to  the  charge  by  moving,  as  Cobden  had  moved  in 
days  that  were  past,  for  a  Committee  of  Inquiry 
into  the  state  of  the  nation.  He  complained  of 
increased  expenditure,  though  it  had  been  reduced, 
and  of  increased  taxation,  though  it  had  not  been 
imposed.  But  his  real  purpose  was  to  show  the 
evils  of  Free  Trade,  and  he  drew  from  Sir  Robert 
Peel  a  masterly  defence  of  his  own  policy,  pro- 
nounced by  Mr.  Bright  to  be  the  finest  speech 
he  had  ever  heard  in  the  House  of  Commons.  It 
is  indeed  a  State  paper  rather  than  a  speech,  and 
should  be  read  by  all  students  of  economic  science 
with  the  same  care  as  Mr.  Pitt's  budget  speech  of 
1798,  or  Mr.  Gladstone's  of  1853.1  It  made  an  end 
of  Mr.  Disraeli  and  his  motion,  which  was  rejected 
by  a  majority  of  140.  The  Government,  in  spite  of 
all  their  blunders,  closed  the  session  stronger  than 
they  were  when  it  opened.  Lord  Palmerston  was 
able  to  insert  in  the  Royal  Speech  a  paragraph 
announcing  that  peace  between  Prussia  and  Den- 
mark, threatened  by  the  affairs  of  Schleswig-Hol- 
stein,  had  been  kept  by  the  mediation  of  England. 
But  the  Government  had  had  an  unmistakable 
warning  to  be  economical.  That  most  incalculable 
of  politicians,  Henry  Drummond,  the  Irvingite, 
acting  for  once  with  Joseph  Hume,  had  beaten 
them  by  three  votes  on  a  motion  in  favour  of 
further  retrenchment.  Mr.  Drummond  was  so 
far  from  being  a  Radical  that  he  might  rather  be 
called  a  Jacobite.  His  Toryism  was  the  Toryism 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  he  regarded  wars  as 

1  Peefs  Collected  Speeches  (1853),  voL  iv.  pp.  804-822. 
VOK  I  K 


130   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  Whig  inventions.  But  he  had  no  influence  in  the 
House,  and  his  success  was  therefore  the  more 
ominous.  Peace  and  frugality  have  never  been  so 
popular,  before  or  since,  as  they  were  in  the  year 
of  continental  reaction,  1849. 

*"diareidand  Ireland  was  at  this  date  a  subject  upon  which 
'  almost  all  Englishmen  were  agreed.  Their  atti- 
tude towards  her  was  one  of  contemptuous  pity, 
and  Mr.  Cobden  declared  that  three  Irishmen 
could  not  be  induced  to  work  together  for  any 
rational  purpose.  Foreigners  not  unnaturally  took 
a  different  view,  and  were  apt  to  compare  British 
rule  in  Ireland  with  Austrian  rule  in  Italy.  This 
theory  was  brought  to  the  notice  of  Lord  Palmer- 
ston,  who  had,  as  usual,  his  answer  ready.  English, 
he  said,  was  spoken  throughout  Ireland,  and  the 
"  propertied  classes "  were  opposed  to  a  repeal  of 
the  union.  He  might  have  added  that  there  was 
no  Italian  Ulster.  Even  a  great  statesman,  a  Pitt, 
a  Peel,  or  a  Gladstone,  could  hardly  have  done 
much  for  Ireland  in  1849.  The  Whigs  could  not 
do  much,  but  they  did  a  little.  After  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act  had  again  been  suspended  for  six 
The^econd  months,1  an  amending  Bill  was  carried  to  substitute 
b««d  Commissioners  for  the  Court  of  Chancery  in  ad- 

Eatates  Act        ....  ,,  -.-,  ,  i-r-i.  *.  T 

ministering  the  Encumbered  Estates  Act,  and 
under  the  amended  statute  a  great  many  sales  were 
carried  out.  A  Parliamentary  title  to  land,  even 
Irish  land,  was  worth  having,  and  speculators  pur- 
chased who  cared  for  nothing  but  their  rents.  In 
short,  the  Act  did  a  great  deal  for  the  landlords, 
but  nothing  at  all  for  the  tenants.  Meanwhile  the 
state  of  Ireland  was  going  rapidly  from  bad  to 
worse.  The  potato  crop  of  1848  had  been  a 
failure,  and  the  people  were  too  weak  to  bear 
privations.  Famine  had  reduced  the  population 

1  Lord  Clarendon  wanted  twelve,  but  the  Cabinet  cut  him  down  to 
six. 


THE  ERA  OF  RETRENCHMENT     131 

from  eight  millions   to   six.      Emigration  was  re- 1849. 
ducing  it  still  further,  and  yet  the   distress  was 
terrible.     Early  in  the  year  Sir  Charles  Wood  had  Feb.  7. 
to  propose  a  grant  of  fifty  thousand  pounds  for  Another 

•  i  •  mi  i-_£r>        ii       •      Irish  grant 

the  poorest  unions,  .there  was  some  difficulty  in 
getting  the  money,  for  public  opinion  in  England 
had  been  exasperated  by  Irish  violence  and  the 
escapades  of  Young  Ireland.  Punch  depicted  the 
Irish  peasant  as  having  nothing  human  about  him, 
not  even  the  form,  and  as  asking  alms  for  the 
purchase  of  a  blunderbuss.  This  tone  of  cruel 
mockery  has  done  more  to  embitter  the  relations 
between  the  two  countries  than  the  eighty-seven 
Coercion  Acts  passed  since  the  Union.  However, 
the  fifty  thousand  pounds  were  voted,  and  a  general 
Bill  was  passed  providing  that  there  should  be  a  The  Irish 

^^  I*oor  Lftvr 

central  fund  in  Ireland  for  the  relief  of  the  poor, 
in  aid  of  which  each  electoral  division  should  be 
rated  at  sixpence  in  the  pound.  This  Bill  passed 
its  second  reading  in  the  House  of  Lords  by  a  bare 
majority,  and  in  Committee  an  important  change 
was  made.  As  the  Bill  left  the  Commons,  it  pro- 
vided that  where  the  poor  rate  in  any  union  rose 
to  five  shillings  in  the  pound,  a  contribution  might 
be  levied  from  other  unions  up  to  two  shillings. 
The  Lords  struck  out  this  limit.  In  doing  so  they 
undoubtedly  infringed  the  privileges  of  the  Com- 
mons. But  time  pressed,  the  case  was  urgent,  and 
the  privilege  was  waived.  Early  in  May  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  again  came  to  the  House 
for  three  hundred  thousand  pounds  under  the  Land 
Improvement  Act,  and  two  hundred  thousand 
towards  arterial  drainage.  All  this  was  ointment 
for  broken  bones.  Not  merely  independent  Radi- 
cals like  Mr.  Bright,  but  the  Prime  Minister  him- 
self, perceived  that  what  the  Irish  tenant  wanted 
was  security  in  his  holding.  Sir  Robert  Peel.  ***  £°b?rt 

•  -I'l-n  i  i-n  Peel  a  plan. 

though  he  acquiesced  in  the  Encumbered  Estates 


132   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  Bill  as  the  best  measure  available  in  the  circum- 
stances, spoke  strongly  in  favour  of  the  Government 
becoming  model  landlords  on  a  large  scale,  and 
setting  an  example  of  how  estates  should  be 
managed.  He  followed  up  his  speech  by  a  re- 
markable Memorandum,  which  he  handed  to  Lord 
Clarendon  for  his  advice  and  guidance.  This 
Memorandum  is  printed  in  the  Peel  Papers? 
It  is  more  speculative  than  most  of  Peel's 
political  proposals.  The  policy  ultimately  adopted 
both  by  Peel  and  by  the  Government  was 
Lord  Clarendon's,  and  that  was  the  policy  of  the 
Encumbered  Estates  Acts.  Coercion  notwith- 
standing, isolated  disturbances  continued,  and  at 
Dolly's  Brae,  in  County  Down,  on  that  melan- 
choly anniversary,  the  12th  of  July,  an  organised 
affray  between  Ribbonmen  and  Orangemen  re- 
sulted in  the  loss  of  several  lives.  But,  in  truth, 
the  Irish  people  were  sinking  from  the  excite- 
ment of  disaffection  into  the  lethargy  of  despair, 
They  received  the  Queen  and  Prince  Albert, 
who  paid  a  private  and  unceremonious  visit  to  the 
country  in  August,2  with  the  courtesy  which  be- 
longs to  their  race.  But  they  were  neither  con- 
tented nor  dangerous.  The  loss  of  O'Connell  was 
irreparable,  and  the  effect  of  the  famine  was 
crushing.  Death  by  the  visitation  of  God  had 
fallen  upon  the  spirit  of  Ireland. 
ther  This  year  Lord  John  Russell  tried  another 

*  °'  ii/»f»i«»i-r  i  T 

BUI  method  ot  enfranchising  the  Jews,  and  proposed  a 
thorough  reform  of  the  Parliamentary  oaths,  which 
were  then  cumbrous  and  voluminous.  The  second 
reading  of  his  Bill  was  carried  by  a  large  majority, 
after  a  maiden  speech  of  great  promise  from  Mr. 

1  Vol.  iii.  pp.  513-516. 

1  The  poverty  and  misery  of  the  country  were  so  dire  that  all  need- 
less expenditure  had  to  be  avoided.  Jf  the  visit  had  heen  more  often 
repeated  in  happier  times,  some  impetus  might  have  been  given  to  the 
revival  of  trade  by  those  who  always  follow  in  the  train  of  royalty. 


THE  ERA  OF  RETRENCHMENT     133 

Frederick  Peel,  second  son  of  Sir  Robert,  whose  1349. 
subsequent  career  was  less  brilliant,  though  not 
less  useful,  than  his  friends  then  hoped  and  ex- 
pected. A  most  sensible  amendment,  moved  by 
Mr.  Vernon  Smith,  the  first  Lord  Lyveden,  to 
abolish  all  oaths,  except  the  oath  of  allegiance, 
was  lost,  and  the  same  fate  befell  the  Bill  it- 
self in  the  House  of  Lords  after  a  very  unequal 
duel  between  Archbishop  Sumner  of  Canterbury 
and  Archbishop  Whately  of  Dublin,  the  distin- 
guished logician  and  economist,  who  would  have 
been  an  ornament  of  any  assembly.  The  Lords 
were  quite  safe  in  rejecting  the  Bill,  which  had 
nothing  to  recommend  it,  except  reason  and 
justice.  Behind  it  there  was  no  driving  force 
of  popular  opinion.  The  dangers  apprehended 
from  the  admission  of  the  Jews  to  Parliament 
were  imaginary  and  fantastic.  As  Macaulay  said 
in  1833,  the  power  which  the  Jew  had  was  far 
greater  than  that  of  which  he  was  deprived.  "  The 
Jew  must  not  sit  in  Parliament ;  but  he  may  be  the 
proprietor  of  all  the  ten-pound  houses  in  a  borough." 
The  Jews,  since  the  removal  of  their  disabilities, 
have  done  comparatively  little  in  Parliament. 
Their  influence  is,  as  it  was,  financial,  and  is  exer- 
cised behind  the  scenes. 

The  Jewish  question  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
Government.  The  Bill  for  the  reform  of  the 
marriage  laws,  introduced  in  1849  and  for  so  many 
years  afterwards,  was  in  the  charge  of  a  private 
member.  No  Government,  Liberal  or  Conserva- 
tive, has  ever  taken  the  grievance  up,  though  a 
grievance  to  this  day  it  remains.  The  Deceased  "*** 

*  .Dc  0  C  US  e<i 

Wife's  Sister  Bill,  as  it  is  popularly  called,  was 
brought  in  at  that  time  by  Mr.  James  Stuart 
Wortley,  afterwards  Recorder  of  London  and 
Solicitor-General.  It  proposed  to  allow  marriage 
with  the  niece  as  well  as  with  the  sister  of  a 


134   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  deceased  wife,  though  the  former  provision  was 
subsequently  abandoned.  As  this  measure  has 
been  before  Parliament  and  the  public  for  more 
than  fifty  years,  some  explanation  of  it  seems  to 
be  necessary  here.  Before  1835  all  marriages 
within  the  prohibited  degrees  were  what  lawyers 
call  voidable,  but  not  void.  That  is  to  say  that 
they  could  be  impeached  in  the  ecclesiastical  courts 
by  an  interested  person  during  the  lifetime  of 
the  parties,  but  if  not  so  challenged  they  held 

1835.  good.  In  1835  Lord  Lyndhurst  introduced  a  Bill 
to  legalise  marriages  within  the  degrees  of  affinity 
contracted  up  to  that  time.  The  real  object  of 
this  Bill,  it  is  notorious,  was  to  save  a  Duke  who 
had  married  his  sister-in-law  from  the  possible 
consequences  of  his  irregularity.  But  in  order  to 
disarm  opposition,  especially  the  opposition  of  the 
Bishops,  Lord  Lyndhurst,  whose  general  principles 
were  fluid,  proposed  that  all  future  marriages 
within  the  prohibited  degrees  should  be  absolutely 
void.  A  statute  passed  in  such  a  manner  deserved 
no  moral  respect,  for  its  very  enactment  was  a 

1849.  scandal  to  the  Legislature.  But  Mr.  Stuart  Wort- 
ley's  Bill  was  open  to  objections  of  much  weight 
and  force.  It  was  quite  illogical,  for  it  did  not 
enable  a  woman  to  marry  her  deceased  husband's 
brother,  nor  touch  the  other  degrees  of  affinity, 
as  distinguished  from  consanguinity.  Moreover, 
it  had  a  retrospective  application,  and  indemnified 
those  who  had  deliberately  broken  the  law.  In- 
stead of  fastening  upon  these  points,  its  opponents, 
especially  Mr.  Roundell  Palmer,  afterwards  Lord 
Chancellor  Selborne,  indulged  in  learned  disquisi- 
tions upon  the  Book  of  Leviticus,  which  is  in  the 
first  place  very  obscure,  and  in  the  second  place  of 
very  doubtful  obligation  upon  Christians.  The 
real  ground  for  the  Bill  is  that  it  would  relieve 
from  a  social  stigma  men  and  women  otherwise  of 


THE  ERA  OF  RETRENCHMENT     135 

the  very  highest  character  who  have  made  such  1349. 
marriages  in  the  exercise  of  what  they  conscienti- 
ously believed  to  be  their  moral  right,  and  often 
to  promote  the  interests  of  their  children.  The 
most  cogent  speech  in  favour  of  the  Bill  was  made 
by  a  singularly  eloquent  man,  Mr.  Cockburn, 
Member  for  Southampton,  known  to  a  later 
generation  as  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England.  Sir 
George  Grey,  speaking  for  himself  and  not  for 
the  Government,  supported  it,  and  he  was  an 
orthodox  Christian  if  ever  there  was  one.  Al- 
though Mr.  Goulburn  resisted  it  on  behalf  of 
Cambridge,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  on  behalf  of  Oxford, 
the  second  reading  of  the  Bill  was  carried  by  177 
votes  to  143.  It  had  to  be  dropped  before  the 
end  of  the  session  owing  to  the  determined  stand 
made  against  it,  and  though  it  has  since  often 
passed  the  House  of  Commons,  it  has  never  yet 
(1903)  passed  the  House  of  Lords.  There  is  no 
popular  excitement  when  the  Lords,  with  a  full 
muster  of  Bishops,  throw  it  out.  As  Dean  Hook 
said,  the  working  classes  do  not  care  for  the  Bill, 
because  they  do  not  regard  the  law. 

Equally  unsuccessful,  though  of  far  more  general  inter- 

TI/T       ^    i    i        >  i       f         i  -^         national 

importance,  was  Mr.  Cobden  s  proposal  or  arbitra-  arbitration. 
tion  as  a  substitute  for  war.  He  made  it  in  a  June  12. 
speech  full  of  that  practical  ability  which  was  his 
most  distinguishing  characteristic.  Quoting  Ben- 
tham's  definition  of  war  as  "  mischief  on  the  largest 
scale,"  he  argued  that  he  was  only  asking  nations 
to  do  before  war  what  they  usually  did  after  it, 
when  they  accepted  the  good  offices  of  their  neigh- 
bours. There  is  no  answer  to  such  arguments, 
which  in  our  day  have  been  recognised  by  the 
Conference  at  The  Hague,  except  the  habitual 
pugnacity  of  man.  Lord  Palmerston,  though  he 
moved  and  carried  the  previous  question,  treated 
Cobden  and  his  motion  with  gravity  and  respect. 


136   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  He  had  indeed  himself,  only  a  few  months  before, 
iwS?aiyao'  privately  suggested  in  a  letter  to  the  Prime  Minister 
a  treaty  of  arbitration  with  the  United  States,  in 
which  moreover  the  citizens  of  each  country  should 
agree  not  to  take  part  in  any  war  against  the 
oilier.1 

1  Ashley's  Life  of  Palmer ston,  vol.  i.  pp.  59-60. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   EXPANSION    OF   ENGLAND 

THE  expansion  of  England,  about  which  Sir  John  ma. 
Seeley  wrote  his  brilliant  and  fascinating  book,  The  ex- 
occurred  for  the  most  part  in  the  eighteenth  cen-  England? 
tury,  and  in  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth. 
But  scarcely  any  one,  except  Clive  and  Hastings, 
did  so  much  for  the  extension,  and,  it  must  be 
added,  for  the  consolidation,  of  the  British  Empire 
in  India  as  Lord  Dalhousie.  The  Earl  of  Dalhousie  Lord 
arrived  in  India  at  the  beginning  of  1848.  He  did 
not  go  out  with  any  grandiose  designs  of  annexa- 
tion or  conquest.  Like  his  predecessor,  Lord 
Hardinge,  though  there  was  a  whole  generation 
between  them,  he  was  a  Peelite,  and  he  was  per- 
sonally devoted  to  Sir  Robert.  Peel  took  a  great 
and  continuous  interest  in  the  affairs  of  India,  as 
his  correspondence  with  Hardinge,  printed  in  the 
Peel  Papers.,  is  enough  to  show.  But  he  considered 
the  Indian  Empire  "  overgrown,"  and  shrank  from 
adding  to  it.  He  cordially  approved  of  Hardinge's 
decision  not  to  annex  the  whole  Punjab  in  1846  after 
the  first  Sikh  War,  though  it  should  be  observed  that 
one-third  of  the  Maharajah's  dominions  were  then 
incorporated  with  British  India,  and  that  a  Pro- 
tectorate was  simultaneously  established  over  the 
remainder.  Lord  Dalhousie  was  well  acquainted 
with  these  events,  and  entirely  approved  of  Lord 

137 


138   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1848.  Hardinge's  policy.  But  he  was  not  prepared  for 
what  happened  in  1848.  In  April  of  that  year  two 

the  Punjab,  young  Englishmen,  Mr.  Vans  Agnew  of  the  Civil 
Service,  and  Lieutenant  Anderson,  were  treacher- 
ously murdered  at  Multan  in  the  Punjab  by  the 
order  or  with  the  connivance  of  the  local  chief, 
Mulraj.  They  had  gone  to  Multan  on  an  official 
errand,  and  were  under  the  special  protection  of 
Great  Britain.  "We  are  not  the  last  of  the 
English,"  said  Vans  Agnew,  just  before  his  death. 
He  had  previously  written  in  pencil  a  note  to  Sir 
Frederick  Currie,  the  nearest  resident  civilian,  ask- 
ing for  help.  This  note  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
future  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  then  a  juvenile 
subaltern,  who  divined  its  urgency  and  opened  it. 

Muuange  of  ^e  ^ad  only  four  hundred  men,  and  Mulraj  had 
four  thousand.  "  I  am  like  a  terrier  barking  at  a 
tiger,"  he  said.  His  heroic  and  successful  efforts 
to  keep  the  Sikhs  at  bay  throughout  the  summer 
are  among  the  most  glorious  achievements  in  the 
history  of  British  India.  At  the  request  of  Sir 
Frederick  Currie,  General  Whish  undertook  the 

KVs      s*ege  °f  Multan.     But  the   Commander-in-Chief, 

inaction.  Lord  Gough,  absolutely  refused  to  do  anything  at 
all,  and  Lord  Dalhousie,  with  a  diffidence  which  he 
never  afterwards  showed,  shrank  from  interfering 
with  the  discretion  of  the  Commander-in-Chief.  In 
September,  however,  he  could  stand  it  no  longer. 
He  reinforced  Lord  Gough  with  seventeen  thou- 
sand men,  and  he  went  to  the  frontier  himself. 
He  was  then  thirty-six,  a  civilian  who  had  played 
only  a  subordinate  part  in  public  life.  But  he  was 
a  born  ruler  of  men.  His  spirit  was  undaunted ; 
his  powers  of  work  were  almost  unlimited  ;  and  he 
had  Lord  Chatham's  gift  of  inspiring  others  with 

ifeihousie'fl  the  confidence  he  felt  himself.     He  magnified  his 

character.  o 

office,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  assert  his  authority 
even  over  the  most  distinguished  of  Anglo-Indians, 


THE  EXPANSION  OF  ENGLAND     139 

such  as  John  and  Henry  Lawrence.  But  indeed  1848. 
the  assertion  soon  became  unnecessary,  and  the 
authority  was  recognised  by  all.  He  was  master 
because  he  was  entitled  to  be,  and  because  he  was 
fit  to  be.  Like  the  high-minded  man  in  the  Ethics, 
he  thought  himself  equal  to  great  things,  and  he 
was  equal  to  them.  At  the  same  time  he  was 
fully  sensible  of  his  duty  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
and  of  the  support  to  be  gained  from  public  1848-9. 
opinion  at  home.  His  style  was  exactly  what 
the  style  of  an  enlightened  despot  should  be.  It 
was  dignified,  lucid,  and  at  times  majestic — the 
style  of  a  man  to  whom  the  honour  of  the 
mother  country  had  been  committed  as  a  sacred 
trust. 

Lord  Dalhousie's  career  in  India,  which  was 
twice  the  ordinary  length,  was  full  of  labour,  and 
full  of  trouble,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  It 
may  almost  be  said  to  have  begun  with  disaster. 
The  siege  of  Multan,  after  weeks  were  wasted,  had 
to  be  raised,  and  though  it  was  resumed  in  the 
winter,  the  city  held  out  till  the  2nd  of  January 
1849.  Eleven  days  afterwards  was  fought  the 
disastrous  battle  of  Chilianwallah,  in  which  four  The  battle 
British  guns,  and  five  stands  of  colours  were  taken  waiS!aa' 
by  the  Sikhs,  while  the  British  losses  amounted  to 
upwards  of  two  thousand.  Chilianwallah  has  been 
described  by  high  military  authority  as  a  drawn 
battle,  and  a  biographer  of  Lord  Dalhousie1  has 
called  it  "  an  evening  battle  fought  by  a  gallant  old 
man  in  a  passion."  A  drawn  battle  in  India  is  a 
defeat  for  the  Paramount  Power,  and  the  news  of 
Chilianwallah  was  received  in  England  with  a  storm 
of  popular  indignation.  The  Government  decided 
to  recall  Lord  Gough,  and  to  send  out  in  his  stead 
Sir  Charles  Napier,  the  conqueror  of  Scinde, 
famous,  among  other  things,  for  having  announced 

1  Sir  William  Hunter. 


140   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  his  conquest  in  the  one  word  "  Peccavi." l  On  the 
21st  of  February,  however,  the  tables  were  com- 
pletely turned.  Lord  Gough  fought  and  won  the 
splendid  victory  of  Goojerat,  in  which  almost  all 
the  enemy's  guns  were  captured,  the  power  of 
the  Sikhs  entirely  broken,  and  their  Afghan  allies 
driven  back  whence  they  came.  Public  opinion  at 
home  veered  round  at  once.  The  thanks  of  both 
Houses  were  voted  to  the  Governor-General,  who 
was  made  a  Marquess ;  to  Lord  Gough,  who  was 
made  a  Viscount ;  and  to  the  whole  Indian  army. 
The  Duke  of  Wellington  referred  in  the  House  of 
Lords  with  unusual  warmth  to  the  services  of  "  my 
Lord  Gough."  But  the  battle  of  Chilianwallah  is 
a  blunder  not  to  be  explained  away,  and  there  is 
evidence  that  Lord  Gough  ought  to  have  been 
removed  from  his  command  before  he  had  the 
opportunity  of  fighting  it.  That  Lord  Gough  was 
the  bravest  of  the  brave  all  who  served  under  him 
agreed.  But  in  the  first  Sikh  War  Lord  Hardinge, 
himself  a  brilliant  soldier,  was  obliged  practically  to 
supersede  the  Commander-in- Chief.  Writing  to  Sir 
Robert  Peel  from  the  camp  at  Ferozepore  on  the 
30th  of  December  1845,  a  "  secret  and  confidential " 
letter,  Lord  Hardinge,  then  Sir  Henry  Hardinge, 
said :  "  Sir  Hugh  Gough  has  no  capacity  for  order 
or  administration.  He  is  at  the  outposts  wonder- 
fully active,  but  the  more  important  points,  which 
he  dislikes,  of  framing  proper  orders,  and  looking 
to  their  execution,  are  very  much  neglected.  His 
staff  is  very  bad,  and  the  state  of  the  army  is 
loose,  disorderly,  and  unsatisfactory."2  Sir  Hugh 
Gough's  peerage  may  have  been  deserved  by  his 
gallantry.  But  to  retain  him  in  the  chief  military 
command  of  India  after  this  letter  was  a  crime. 

1  After  the  glorious  battle  of  Meeanee,  and  the  consequent  capture 
of  Hyderabad. 

2  Peel  Papers,  vol.  iii.  p.  299. 


THE  EXPANSION  OF  ENGLAND     141 

The  battle  of  Goojerat,  which  was  won  by  the  1849. 
superior  artillery  of  the  British  force,  involved  the 
conquest  of  the  Punjab.  Lord  Dalhousie  had  to 
consider  what  he  would  do  with  his  victory,  and  he 
came  to  the  conclusion  that,  after  two  Sikh  wars, 
a  third  must  be  avoided  by  annexing  the  Land 
of  the  Five  Rivers  to  the  British  Crown.  He  Pe  •?°fxft- 

T  •  1  T»  *1011         * 

accordingly  annexed  it  by  Proclamation  on  the  '&™fr*>- 
29th  of  March.  He  defended  this  course  to  the 
Directors  in  a  long  and  able  despatch.  After 
pointing  out  the  difficulties  of  the  old  system,  and 
showing  that  the  Sikhs  had  not  kept  their  part  of 
the  bargain,  he  dwelt  upon  the  serious  nature  of  the 
rising,  and  argued  that  the  motives  must  indeed  be 
strong  which  had  brought  together  tribes  so  mutu- 
ally hostile  as  the  Sikhs  and  the  Afghans.  The 
inference  he  drew  from  these  facts  was  that  the 
Punjab  must  be  put  under  British  Government  for 
the  security  of  North- Western  India.  The  high 
authority  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  was  opposed  Henry 

J     . .  T,  J  -.  . ,  .  rr  Lawrence 

to  annexation.  But  scarcely  another  voice  was  objects. 
raised  against  Lord  Dalhousie's  policy,  which  the 
Directors,  the  Cabinet,  and  Parliament  alike  ac- 
cepted. The  Governor-General  at  once  took  up  the 
work  of  settlement.  The  Maharajah,  Dhuleejp 
Singh,  then  a  boy  of  eleven,  who  afterwards 
devoted  many  years  to  imitating  British  squires, 
and  the  end  of  his  life  to  intriguing  against  British 
rule  in  India,  received  the  handsome  compensa- 
tion of  fifty  thousand  a  year  for  not  being  allowed 
to  sit  on  the  throne  of  Runjeet.  The  administra- 
tion of  the  new  province  was  entrusted  to  a  board 
of  three.  Henry  and  John  Lawrence,  who  did  not 
always  agree  upon  Indian  policy,  were  associated 
with  Mr.  Mansel,  a  civilian,  because  the  Governor- 
General  did  not  choose  to  be  under  the  influence 
of  any  family,  however  distinguished.  But  that  Swence*' 
illustrious  pair  of  brothers  never  allowed  anything  ' th* 


142   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  to  interfere  with  duty,  and  the  result  of  their 
efforts  was  that  the  Punjab  remained  faithful  to 
Great  Britain  in  those  dark  days  when  the  exist- 
ence of  British  rule  in  India  was  threatened  with 
imminent  destruction. 

From  the  year  1849  dates  the  beginning  of  real 
self-government  for  the  British  Colonies,  and  of 
that  practical  independence  which,  paradoxical  as 
it  may  seem,  is  the  source  of  their  enthusiastic 
loyalty  to  the  British  Crown.  Mr.  Disraeli,  who 
passed  through  many  phases  of  thought  on  this 
subject,  and  is  not  fairly  to  be  judged  by  any  one 
of  them,  attacked  the  admission  of  "  slave-grown  " 
sugar  as  the  death-blow  of  the  Colonial  system. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  was  no  connection  be- 
tween the  two  things ;  for  our  Colonial  system 
rests  upon  the  absolute  freedom  both  of  the  mother 

oioniai  country  and  the  Colonies  to  make  such  financial 
arrangements  as  in  their  own  interests  they  think 
best.  Mr.  Cobden  was  the  consistent  advocate 
of  representative  institutions  for  the  Colonies, 
at  which  Lord  Brougham  scoffed  and  jeered. 
But  Cobden  erroneously  supposed  that  Canada 
with  representative  institutions  would  follow  the 
example  of  the  United  States.  He  underrated 
the  "golden  link  of  the  Crown,"  and  that  senti- 
ment of  patriotic  affection  which  has  proved 
stronger  than  legal  bonds.  From  the  purely 
commercial  point  of  view  he  was  right.  Trade, 
as  has  been  well  said,  does  not  follow  the  flag ;  it 
follows  the  consumer.  We  can  do  as  much  busi- 
ness with  a  foreign  nation  as  with  an  integral  part 
of  the  British  Empire,  and  Colonial  tariffs  have 
seldom  been  framed  with  any  special  regard  for 
the  profit  of  Great  Britain.  But  there  is  another 
side  of  the  picture  which  Cobden,  true  statesman 
though  he  was,  did  not  see.  Colonial  loyalty  is 
nothing  new.  In  one  of  his  speeches  on  the  Sugar 


THE  EXPANSION  OF  ENGLAND     143 

Bill  of  1848,  Sir  Robert  Peel  paid  a  just  and  1349. 
eloquent  tribute  to  the  fidelity  which  most  of  the 
Colonies  displayed  in  the  American  War,  and  all  of 
them  in  the  War  with  France.  That  that  fidelity 
would  be  strengthened,  and  not  weakened,  by 
taking  off  the  bearing-rein  from  their  necks,  was 
not  sufficiently  perceived  by  the  Manchester  school. 
They  showed  a  want  of  faith  in  their  own  principles, 
which  they  might  have  supplied  by  refreshing  their 
memories  with  Mr.  Burke's  great  speech  on  con- 
ciliation with  America.  Perhaps  no  one  in  1849, 
unless  it  was  Sir  William  Molesworth,  fully  under- 
stood that  independence  is  an  ambiguous  term,  and 
that  local  independence  may  be  the  best  guarantee 
for  imperial  unity.  The  Colonial  Office  in  1849,  unpopu- 

T     i  r  /..  J     -,  •,          larity  of  the 

and  long  afterwards,  was  extremely  unpopular.  g*>™ial 
Lord  Grey  was  one  of  the  ablest  men  who  ever 
presided  over  it,  and  he  was  a  true  friend  of 
rational  freedom.  But  he  lacked  sympathy  and 
imagination.  He  was  the  embodiment  of  red 
tape.  The  permanent  Under- Secretary,  Mr.  Her- 
man Merivale,  was  a  distinguished  economist,  his- 
torian, and  man  of  letters.  But  he  belonged  in 
Colonial  matters  to  the  old  school — the  school  of 
leading-strings  and  judicious  advice.  Early  in  the 
session  of  1849,  at  the  end  of  February,  a  furious 
onslaught  was  made  upon  the  Colonial  Office  by 
Mr.  Henry  Baillie,  the  Member  for  Inverness- 
shire,  who  accused  Lord  Grey  of  the  most 
tyrannous  maladministration  in  Ceylon,  where 
the  Governor,  Lord  Torrington,  had  put  down  Lord 
a  rebellion  with  extreme  severity,  disregarded 
the  plea  of  the  Chief  Justice  for  mercy  to  the 
offenders,  flogged  a  native  chief,  and  hanged 
a  Buddhist  priest  in  full  canonicals.  The  feel- 
ing of  the  House  was  so  strongly  against 
the  Government  that  Ministers  agreed  to  the 
appointment  of  a  Committee  in  order  to  escape 


144   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  defeat.1  Nothing  came  of  the  Committee,  nor  of 
the  Report,  and  the  whole  subject,  though  dis- 
cussed in  Parliament,  was  soon  forgotten.  Such 
was  Colonial  administration  in  1849. 

The  A  much  more  serious  question  arose  in  May. 

indemnity  Canada  was  at  that  time  the  only  colony  which 
possessed  really  representative  institutions,  being 
governed  on  the  famous  principles  of  Lord  Dur- 
ham. The  Legislature  of  Lower  Canada  had 
passed  a  Bill  to  indemnify  those  who  suffered 
losses  in  the  rebellion  ten  years  before.  This  Bill 
had  received  the  assent  of  Lord  Elgin,  the  Gover- 
nor-General, and  was  therefore  law,  although  Lord 
Grey  might  still  have  advised  the  Queen  to  put 
her  veto  upon  it.  While  persons  convicted  of 
treason  were  excepted  from  the  benefit  of  com- 
pensation, it  was  alleged  by  the  more  aggressive 
loyalists  that  a  number  of  rebels  would  be  entitled 
to  relief,  and  this  they  regarded  as  an  intolerable 

Riots  at  grievance.  These  loyalists  showed  their  loyalty  by 
pelting  the  representative  of  the  Queen,  and  burn- 
ing the  Parliament  House  at  Montreal  to  the 
ground.  Lord  Elgin  stood  firm,  and  was  sup- 
ported, as  he  well  deserved  to  be,  by  the  Govern- 
ment at  home.  But  the  Opposition  took  the  side 

1  The  Report  of  this  Committee  was  for  the  most  part  the  work  of 
the  Colonial  Office  itself,  in  the  person  of  Henry  Taylor,  author  of 
Philip  von  Artevelde,  who  gives  in  his  Autobiography  a  curious  account 
of  the  proceedings.  <f  1  attended  the  Committee  frequently,"  he  says, 
"  to  hear  what  was  going  on,  and  I  took  note  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who 
was  a  member  of  it.  There  he  sat,  day  after  day  and  week  after 
week,  profoundly  silent.  .  .  .  Weary  hours  were  wasted  every  day  on 
subjects  beside  the  purpose.  Sir  Robert  Peel  looked  on  with  inex- 
haustible patience.  .  .  .  Nobody  was  convinced  by  anybody  else,  nor 
was  there  much  reason  why  they  should  be,  and  the  contention  appear- 
ing as  endless  as  it  was  unprofitable,  all  parties  became  utterly  tired  of 
themselves,  and  each  other,  and  the  whole  concern.  Then  rose  Sir 
Robert,  and  what  a  miracle  was  wrought  when  the  dumb  man  spoke." 
Sir  Robert  rose  for  the  purpose  of  submitting  a  historical  report  drafted 
by  Mr.  Taylor,  with  a  few  "  vague  conciliatory  sentences "  added  by 
himself.  As  he  said,  he  never  prescribed  until  he  was  called  in  ;  but  a 
process  of  exhaustion  may  amount  to  a  call. 


THE  EXPANSION  OF  ENGLAND     145 

of  arson  against  rebellion,  and  Mr.   Herries,  the  1349. 
same  who  had  the  doubtful  honour  to  be  Lord 
Goderich's  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,   moved 
that  the  Bill  should  be  disallowed.     He  was  de-  Proposed 
feated  by  291  votes  against  150,  but  the  supreme  anTe Saw 
issue  of  Canadian  self-government  was  not  raised 
with  adequate  clearness.     Mr.  Gladstone,  after  a 
somewhat    irrelevant    denunciation    of    rebellion, 
asserted   the   right   of   Parliament   to   override   a 
Colonial  legislature.     The  legal  right  was  undeni- 
able.     But   so   was   the   right    to    tax    America, 
vindicated  against  his  own    better  judgment   by 
Lord   North.      Lord   John    Russell    pleaded    the 
practical  impossibility  of  discriminating  Canadians 
who  were  loyal  from  Canadians  who  were  not,  and 
Sir  Robert  Peel  opposed  on  constitutional  grounds 
the  dangerous  motion  of  Mr.  Herries.     The  real 
point  was  bluntly  put  by  Mr.  Roebuck,  an  erratic 
politician,  but  an  old  friend  of  Canada.     "  This,"  Recognition 
he  said  in  effect,  "  is  Canadian,  not  English  money.  8 

The  Canadians  have  a  right  to  do  as  they  please 
with  it."  Roebuck's  common  sense  is  worth  more 
than  all  the  elaborate  sophistry  expended  upon 
this  subject  by  Brougham  and  Lyndhurst  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  Lord  Brougham  took  the  same 
line  as  Mr.  Herries,  and  was  only  beaten  by  the 
narrow  majority  of  three.  Lord  Lyndhurst,  who 
knew  something  of  North  American  colonists, 
having  been  born  in  Massachusetts  before  the 
declaration  of  independence,  and  Lord  Stanley, 
who  had  been  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies, 
should  have  known  better  than  to  take  part 
in  a  movement  which,  if  it  had  been  successful, 
might  have  led  to  worse  disturbances  than  those 
of  1838. 

The  other  Colonial  event  of  this  year,  besides 
the  cession  of  Vancouver's  Island  to  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company,  was  the  refusal  of  the  public  at  the 
VOL.  i  L 


146   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  Cape  to  permit  the  landing  of  convicts  at  Cape 
Town.  For  the  obstinate  blunder  of  transporta- 
tion the  responsibility  must  be  divided  between 
the  Colonial  Office  and  the  Home  Office,  which, 
under  a  Whig  Administration,  were  characteristi- 
cally filled  by  cousins.  An  Order  in  Council, 
dated  the  4th  of  September  1848,  gave  authority 
for  landing  at  Cape  Town  a  number  of  convicts, 
Refusal  of  euphemistically  called  ticket-of-leave  men.  This 
cape10  y  Order  excited  a  tempest  of  local  indignation,  and 
on  the  4th  of  July  1849  a  public  meeting  at  Cape 
Town  passed  votes  of  censure  upon  the  Governor 
and  the  Secretary  of  State.  The  Governor  was 
Sir  Harry  Smith,  an  excellent  soldier,  but  not 
very  well  qualified  for  the  work  of  civilian  ad- 
ministration. His  chief  idea  was  that  discipline 
must  be  maintained,  and  in  this  case  he  was  quite 
unable  to  maintain  it.  Lord  Grey  was  driven  to 
the  adoption  of  conciliatory  tactics,  which  were 
not  his  favourite  weapons.  In  a  despatch  to  Sir 
Harry  he  offered  to  furnish  the  colony  with  a 
free  labourer  for  every  convict  received.  Emigra- 
tion was  then  much  in  the  air,  and  was  regarded 
by  benevolent  persons  as  the  panacea  for  the  ills 
of  the  poor.  But  the  colonists  were  not  to  be 
cajoled,  and  were  resolved  that  the  convicts  should 
never  be  allowed  to  land.  When  on  the  19th  of 
September  the  convict  ship,  the  Neptune,  arrived 
in  Simon's  Bay,  she  could  get  no  provisions  from 
shore,  and  she  ultimately  sailed  away  with  her 
cargo.  This  was  a  stroke  fatal  to  transportation, 
and  the  beginning  of  the  end.  The  unspeakable 
horrors  of  Norfolk  Island  had  recently  been,  so 
far  as  they  could  be,  unveiled.  Penal  servitude 
had  not  yet  been  invented,  and  the  official  mind 
could  not  grasp  the  idea  of  a  Colonial  system 
which  did  not  include  penal  settlements.  But 
Cape  Colony,  by  its  bold,  timely*  and  decisive 


THE  EXPANSION  OF  ENGLAND     147 

action,  had  brought  things  to  a  head.  Grave  as  1349. 
the  direct  issue  was,  its  indirect  consequences  were 
graver,  or  at  least  larger,  still.  The  Colonies  were 
determined  that  they  would  no  longer  be  used  as 
convenient  appendages  of  the  mother  country. 
They  meant  to  live  their  own  lives,  and  to  carve 
out  their  own  future.  The  expulsion  of  the  Nep- 
tune from  South  African  waters  was  not  less 
momentous,  and  far  more  auspicious,  than  the 
jettison  of  the  tea  in  Boston  Harbour.  For  Lord 
John  Russell  did  not  share  the  pliability  of  Lord 
North,  nor  did  Queen  Victoria  resemble  her 
grandfather,  George  the  Third.  The  Whigs,  who 
always  required  stirring,  were  stirred  by  the  laudable 
resistance  of  Cape  Colony  into  an  honest  effort  to 
remodel  the  relations  between  Great  Britain  at 
home  and  the  Greater  Britain  beyond  the  seas. 
They  were,  however,  extremely  averse,  as  were 
all  parties  at  that  time,  from  extending  the  area  The  orange 
of  British  occupation  in  South  Africa.  Sir  Harry 
Smith,  after  the  Kaffir  War  of  1847,  defeated  the 
Boers,  as  the  Dutch  farmers  of  the  Cape  were 
called,  at  Boom-plaats,  and  proclaimed  the  Queen's 
sovereignty  over  the  territory  between  the  Orange 
and  Vaal  Rivers.  But  the  Government  refused 
to  incur  any  expense,  or  to  assume  any  responsi- 
bility, and  the  annexation  was  never  formally 
recognised  by  the  Crown.  Lord  Grey  would,  if  he 
could,  have  limited  the  British  possessions  in  South 
Africa  to  Cape  Town  and  Simon's  Bay. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THEOLOGY   AND   LITERATURE 

1847-49.  THE  Oxford  Movement,  the  ecclesiastical  and 
sacerdotal  revival  of  the  nineteenth  century,  was 
injured  but  not  destroyed  by  the  secession  of  John 
Henry  Newman  to  Roman  Catholicism  in  1845.  It 
received  some  stimulus  from  the  appointment  of 
The  Dr.  Hampden  to  the  See  of  Hereford  in  1847.  Dr. 
Hampden  was  consecrated  by  the  new  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  Dr.  Sumner,  a  Low  Churchman, 
and  a  lover  of  peace.  His  predecessor,  Archbishop 
Howley,  who  died  just  in  time,  is  reported  to  have 
said  that  rather  than  consecrate  Hampden  he  would 
go  to  the  Tower.  Few  heretics,  real  or  sham,  have 
been  less  interesting  than  Dr.  Hampden,1  and  once 
he  had  become  a  bishop,  little  more  was  heard  of 
him.  His  consecration  asserted  the  right  of  the 
Crown  to  select  for  any  bishopric  any  person 
qualified  by  law.  If  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of 
Hereford  had  refused  to  elect  Dr.  Hampden,  they 
would  have  been  liable  to  banishment  and  to 
the  confiscation  of  their  goods.  It  is  not  to  be 
imagined  that  these  penalties  would  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  have  been  exacted,  and  they  would 

1  Hampden' s  alleged  heresy,  according  to  his  biographer  in  the 
National  Dictionary,  was  the  proposition  that  the  authority  of  the 
Scriptures  is  higher  than  the  authority  of  the  Church,  which  all 
Protestants  have  held  since  the  time  of  Luther.  But  he  seems  to  have 
been  also  considered  unsound  on  the  inspiration  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment 

148 


THEOLOGY  AND  LITERATURE    149 

have  been  needless.  For  by  one  of  the  Reforma- 1347-49 
tion  statutes,  which  made  the  Church  of  England 
a  Parliamentary  Church,  Hampden  could  have 
been  created  Bishop  of  Hereford  under  Letters 
Patent.  The  only  measure  which  could  defeat 
the  right  of  the  Crown  would  be  a  refusal  by  all 
the  Bishops  to  consecrate  the  Crown's  nominee. 
But  at  that  time  the  High  Church  party,  though 
steadily  making  way  among  the  clergy  and  the 
clerical  laity,  had  very  few  representatives  on 
the  Bench.  Among  the  early  leaders  of  Trac- 
tarianism  was  Richard  Hurrell  Froude,  wh°se 
published  Remains  show  brilliant  gifts,  but  con- 
tain more  prejudice  than  intelligence.  His 
brother,  James  Anthony  Froude,  the  future  his- 
torian, came  at  Oxford  under  the  influence  of 
Newman,  but  he  soon  fell  away,  and  his  Nemesis 
of  Faith,  which  appeared  in  1848,  is  the  first  fruit 
of  the  sceptical  reaction  against  Newmanism. 
This  little  book  is  unworthy  of  its  author,  and 
not  fit  to  be  compared  with  the  masterpieces 
of  his  genius.  It  caused,  however,  no  small 
stir,  and  led  to  the  resignation  of  his  Fellow- 
ship at  Exeter,  where  a  zealous  tutor  burnt 
the  volume  in  the  quadrangle  of  the  college. 
Froude's  exquisite  style,  which  matured  and 
mellowed  with  years,  was  originally  modelled  on 
Newman's.  But  though  he  had  been  ordained 
in  his  youth  a  clergyman  of  the  English  Church, 
he  soon  abandoned  the  practice  of  his  profession, 
and  became  editor  of  Frasers  Magazine.  His 
breach  with  the  Tractarians  was  complete,  and 
his  master  in  things  spiritual  was  Thomas  Carlyle. 
The  year  1848  was  distinguished  by  the  ex- 
ceedingly  high  level  of  its  literary  production. 
Before  its  close  appeared  the  first  two  volumes 
of  Macaulay's  History.  Their  success  was  im- 
mediate, and  prodigious.  Everybody  read  them, 


150   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847-49.  everybody  talked  about  them,  almost  everybody 
admired  them.  The  period  of  which  they  treated, 
the  reign  of  James  the  Second,  was  little  known. 
The  standard  History  of  England  at  that  time 
was  Hume's,  which  has  little  to  recommend  it 
except  the  beauty  of  the  language.  Macaulay's 
style  has  some  obvious  defects,  and,  as  he  himself 
said,  it  is  a  dangerous  one  to  imitate.  But  it  is 
always  forcible,  often  eloquent,  never  obscure. 
He  was  justly  proud,  as  Sir  George  Trevelyan  tells 
us,  of  a  vote  passed  by  a  number  of  Lancashire 
operatives  to  thank  him  for  "having  written 
a  History  of  England  which  working  men  could 
understand."1  Great  scholar  as  he  was,  and  pro- 
foundly learned,  he  had  the  orator's  instinct  for 
making  his  points  clear  to  the  simplest  mind. 
He  is  commonly  called  the  Whig  historian,  but 
he  was  rather  a  Williamite  than  a  Whig.  William 
is  the  hero  of  the  book,  and  all  students  of  history 
must  wish  that  they  had  from  the  same  pen  a 
portrait  of  William's  great-grandfather,  called  the 
Silent.  Not  the  least  valuable  part  of  these 
volumes,  which  made  the  fortune  of  author  and 
publisher,  was  the  summary  of  English  history 
before  the  accession  of  James,  with  which  they 
opened.  Of  this  Professor  Freeman  said  that  it 
was  perfect,  and  could  not,  even  in  the  light  of 
later  knowledge,  be  improved.  Since  the  loss  of 
his  seat,  and  his  resignation  of  office,  Macaulay's 
leisure  had  been  unbroken  by  public  engage- 
ments, and  he  had  devoted  his  whole  time  to  the 
task  of  his  life.  In  1849,  upon  the  death  of  Pro- 
fessor Smyth,  Lord  John  Russell  offered  him  the 
Chair  of  Modern  History  at  Cambridge,  and  Prince 
Albert  as  Chancellor  pressed  it  upon  his  accept- 
ance. But  Macaulay,  who  always  did  a  thing 
thoroughly  when  he  did  it  at  all,  refused  to  be 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Lord  Macaulay,  vol.  ii.  p.  239. 


THEOLOGY  AND  LITERATURE    151 

drawn  aside  from  his  main  purpose  by  duties  1847-19. 
which,  as  he  understood  them,  would  have  been 
arduous  and  engrossing.1  Henceforth  he  confined 
his  literary  labours  to  his  book,  and  to  the  masterly 
series'  of  biographies  which  he  wrote  for  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica. 

Another  great  historian  in  another  line  of  history 
completed  his  masterpiece  during  the  year  of  revo- 
lutions. Macaulay's  chief  work  has  been  called, 
most  unjustly,  an  historical  fiction.  Vanity  Fair  ^^era 
might  be  called  with  more  justice  a  fictitious Fair- 
history.  A  novel  without  a  hero  was  a  bold  ex- 
periment. But  in  Thackeray's  hands  it  was,  as 
all  the  world  knows,  a  brilliant  success.  Vanity 
Fair,  which  owes  perhaps  some  part  of  its  fame  to 
the  matchless  felicity  of  its  title,  is  an  unsparing, 
in  some  respects  a  savage  satire  upon  the  social 
foibles  of  mankind.  The  story  is  put  back  to  the 
days  of  Waterloo,  though  the  human  nature  in 
it  belongs  to  all  time.  But  the  original  of  Lord 
Steyne  had  not  long  been  dead ;  the  whole  tone 
of  the  book  is  modern ;  and  it  breathes  the 
spirit  of  contempt  for  mere  authority  or  rank, 
not  distinguished  by  genius  or  virtue,  which 
was  characteristic  of  England  when  it  appeared. 
Thackeray  can  hardly  be  compared,  except  to  be 
contrasted,  with  his  great  rival,  Dickens.  Dickens 
painted  with  a  broader  brush,  and  touched  simpler 
issues.  His  sarcasm  is  obvious,  almost  conven- 
tional. His  humour  culminates  in  uproarious 
fun.  Thackeray,  with  equal  genius,  had  far  more 
sensitive  refinement,  and  also  more  originality 
or  inventiveness  of  method.  Through  his  satire 
there  runs  a  vein  of  serious  moral  purpose. 
His  books  are  inspired  with  a  love  of  righteous- 

1  The  new  Professor  was  Sir  James  Stephen,  author  of  Essays  in 
Ecclesiastical  Biography,  and  for  many  years  Under- Secretary  at  the 
Colonial  Office. 


152   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847-49.  ness,  and  a  hatred  of  iniquity.  He  was  the 
lay  preacher  of  his  age.  Mary  Barton,  also 
published  in  1848,  described  with  singular  power 
and  exquisite  tenderness  the  struggles  and  suffer- 
ings of  the  working  classes  in  Lancashire  before 
o^keii  *ne  ^option  of  Free  Trade.  The  author, 
*wry  Mrs.  Gaskell,  wife  of  a  Unitarian  minister  at 
Manchester,  at  once  made  her  mark  as  a 
writer  of  fiction  worthy  to  be  put  on  the  same 
shelf  with  Jane  Austen's  and  Maria  Edge- 
worth's.  Mary  Barton  was  only  the  first  of  a 
series  in  which  all  lovers  of  literature  continued 
to  rejoice. 

In  a  very  different  sphere,  a  sphere  which  is 

as  much  scientific  as  literary,  John   Stuart  Mill 

began  to  exercise  at  this  time  an  influence  which 

steadily  grew  for  the  next  quarter  of  a  century. 

urns        His  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  published  in 

Political  *  «<.  .      .  «?'   * 

Economy.  1848,  are  avowedly  grounded  upon  the  system  01 
Ricardo.  The  extreme  and  repulsive  dryness  of 
Ricardo's  methods  severely  limited  the  circulation 
of  his  book.  His  doctrines  had  already  been  put 
into  a  popular  shape  by  De  Quincey,  and  to  some 
extent  illustrated  by  Harriet  Martineau's  tales. 
But  Mill  expounded  them  with  a  fulness,  an 
eloquence,  and  a  fervour  which  made  them  for  the 
first  time  attractive  and  accessible  to  all.  Mill  is 
indeed  the  standing  instance  to  prove  that  political 
economy  has  no  connection  with  unsympathetic 
hardness  of  nature.  He  was  the  most  sentimental 
of  philosophers,  and  a  passionate  enthusiast  in  what- 
ever cause  he  took  up.  The  worst  fault  in  his 
book  is  the  dangerous  and  disastrous  admission 
that  protection  may  be  beneficial  to  the  nascent 
industries  of  a  rising  colony.  The  experience  of 
New  South  Wales  on  the  one  side,  and  of  Victoria 
on  the  other,  has  shown  the  precise  opposite  to 
be  true.  This  was  Mill's  one  economic  heresy, 


THEOLOGY  AND  LITERATURE    153 

as    belief    in    the    Navigation   Laws   was   Adam  1847.49. 
Smith's. 

The  collapse  of  Chartism  was  followed  by  the  Christian 
efforts  of  the  Christian  Socialists  to  improve  the 
condition  of  the  poor  by  sanitary  and  co-operative 
methods.  The  Public  Health  Act  of  1848,  a 
measure  for  reforming  the  drainage  of  towns,  was 
the  first  serious  attempt  to  strike  through  legis- 
lation at  the  root  of  disease.  Frederick  Maurice, 
James  Ludlow,  Edward  Mansfield,  and  Lord  , 
Goderich,1  were  among  the  first  co-operators.  But 
Charles  Kingsley,  whose  best  novel,  Alton  Locke,  charies 
appeared  in  1849,  gave  the  greatest  stimulus  to  the  m 
movement.  Kingsley,  who  called  himself  Parson 
Lot,  was  a  zealous  Broad  Churchman  of  the  sport- 
ing, secular  type.  He  knew  little,  and  cared  less, 
about  theology.  His  aim  was  to  make  Chris- 
tianity practical  by  bringing  it  to  bear  upon  social 
abuses,  and  to  show  the  working  classes  that  the 
clergyman  was  their  best  friend.  He  was  not, 
as  he  himself  confessed,  a  clear  thinker,  and  the 
moral  reflections  in  his  novels  were  apt  to  de- 
generate into  rant.  His  philosophy  was  poor  and 
shallow.  But  he  was  a  real  poet,  especially 
distinguished  as  a  writer  of  ballads,  and  he  had 
a  forcible  style  which  impressed  even  where  it 
did  riot  persuade.  Few  men  of  his  time,  lay  or 
clerical,  did  so  much  as  Kingsley  for  the  material 
good  of  the  poor.  His  parishioners  at  Eversley 
adored  him,  and  the  pick  of  the  working  classes 
trusted  him  as  a  genuine  champion  of  their  rights. 
His  passion  for  the  country,  and  especially  for 
trout -streams,  inspired  both  his  poetry  and  his 
prose.  But  he  was  a  child  of  the  age,  always 
full  of  the  moment,  and  Alton  Locke  deals  chiefly 
with  the  Chartism  of  the  towns.  It  might  almost 
have  been  written  by  Carlyle,  so  full  is  it  of  his 

1  Afterwards  the  Marquess  of  Rip  on. 


1847-49.  phraseology  and  teaching.  Kingsley,  however, 
to  do  him  justice,  never  forgot  that  he  was  a 
clergyman,  though  he  did  smoke  black  pipes  and 
wear  black  ties.  He  aimed  at  converting  the 
masses  to  Christianity,  and  not  an  unorthodox 
Christianity,  by  taking  up  their  cause  and  doing 
them  good.  His  ballads  and  lyrics,  which  have 
outlived  Alton  Locke,  ought  not  to  obliterate  the 
memory  of  what  he  did  for  the  health  and  comfort 
of  humble  homes. 

Max  Muller's  translation  of  the  Rig- Veda,  the 
sacred  book  of  the  Hindoos,  which  also  appeared 
in  1849,  marks  an  epoch  in  that  comparative  study 
of  religions  which  has  since  so  thoroughly  pene- 
trated the  theological  atmosphere  of  Europe.  The 
translator,  even  then  a  scholar  of  European  reputa- 
tion, was  a  young  German  who  came  early  to 
England,  and  made  Oxford  his  home.  His  lati- 
tudinarian  views  for  a  time  impeded  his  progress, 
and  prevented  him  obtaining  the  Professorship  of 
Sanskrit,  which,  however,  was  bestowed  upon  a 
thoroughly  competent  man,  Monier  Williams. 
But  another  Professorship  was  founded  for  him, 
and  for  many  years  he  lectured  on  Comparative 
Philology  to  an  audience  far  wider  than  that 
which  crowded  his  lecture  room.  It  could  not 
have  been  expected  that  the  Rig- Veda  would  be 
popular.  But  the  total  failure  of  The  Strayed 
Reveller  and  other  Poems,  by  A.,  is  more  difficult 
to  understand.  This  volume,  the  first  of  Matthew 
Arnold's,  though  it  contained  "  Mycerinus,"  "  The 
New  Sirens,"  "  The  Forsaken  Merman,"  "  Resigna- 
tion," and  some  of  the  author's  best  sonnets,  made 
no  mark  whatever,  and  was  almost  immediately 
withdrawn  from  circulation.  At  that  time  there 
was  a  presumption  against  poetry  which  a  new 
poet  had  gradually  to  overcome. 

1848  is  a  famous  epoch  in  the  history  of  British 


THEOLOGY  AND  LITERATURE    155 

art,  for  it  is  the  year  in  which  the  Pre-Raphaelite  1347-49. 
Brotherhood  was  founded  by  Millais,  Rossetti,  lhep--R  R 
and  Holman  Hunt.  Millais'  beautiful  picture  of 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  exhibited  in  the  Academy 
of  1849,  is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  this^school, 
which  also  included  Ford  Madox  Brown  and 
Edward  Burne  Jones.  Its  principles  consisted  in 
a  reversion  to  the  natural  and  primitive  style  of 
the  early  Italian  school,  culminating  in  Botticelli, 
which  Perugino,  and  Raphael,  and  their  successors 
were  thought  to  have  perverted.  The  prophet  of 
the  brotherhood  was  John  Ruskin,  whose  Seven  nuskin  3 
Lamps  of  Architecture  bears  the  date  of  1849.  J*** 
Ruskin  was  then  at  the  height  of  his  powers,  and 
on  the  threshold  of  his  fame.  As  a  writer  of 
flowing,  ornate  English  he  had  no  living  rival,  and 
though  he  was  always  dogmatic,  he  was  in  those 
days  not  merely  capable  of  argument,  but  a  vigor- 
ous reasoner.  In  architecture  he  was  the  champion 
of  Gothic  against  Renaissance,  and  especially  of 
Italian  Gothic,  though  he  was  also  a  great  admirer 
of  Byzantine  and  Romanesque.  An  age  whose  The  new 

i-    v    '.  i-,  i  •  .     j     -i        Houses  of 

highest  architectural  genius  was  represented  by  Parliament 
the  new  Houses  of  Parliament  required  to  be 
taught  the  essential  difference  between  good  archi- 
tecture and  bad.  This  elaborate  Palace  is  the 
joint  work  of  Barry,  who  designed  it,  and  of 
Pugin,  who  carried  out  the  details  under  Barry's 
supervision.  The  cost  was  the  object  of  many 
pertinacious  attacks  from  Hume,  Cobden,  and 
other  economists.  That  aspect  of  the  question 
has  lost  its  interest  now,  and  the  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment have  become  so  familiar  that  they  are  seldom 
criticised.  Seen  from  a  distance,  they  are  imposing 
enough,  and  the  interior  of  the  House  of  Lords  has 
a  wealth  of  colour  which  attracts  the  eye.  But  the 
Gothic  of  Barry  and  Pugin  is  ill-fitted  to  sustain 
comparison  with  Westminster  Abbey,  or  West- 


156    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1847-49.  minster  Hall,  or  that  noble  cloister  of  the  fifteenth 
century  which  survived  the  fire  of  1834  only  to 
become  a  cloak-room  and  smoking-room  for  the 
House  of  Commons.  If  Ruskin  taught  nothing 
else,  he  enforced  the  memorable  lesson  that  the 
style  of  a  building  should  be  adapted  to  the  use 
which  it  serves.  "The  Palace  of  Westminster" 
is  a  conventional  term.  The  Sovereign  does  not 
live  there  ;  but  Parliament  does  sit  there.  It  is  a 
place  of  business,  not  an  abode  of  pomp,  and  a 
severe  simplicity,  such  as  distinguishes  the  Parlia- 
ment House  at  The  Hague,  would  have  become  it 
far  better  than  an  imitation  of  Milan  Cathedral. 
The  "great  hall  of  William  Rufus,"  with  the 
rafters  of  Richard  the  Second,  is  the  real  glory 
of  Westminster,  and  it  is  not  surpassed  in  the 
world. 

chloroform.  To  this  period  belongs  a  great  invention,  perhaps 
the  most  beneficent  result  of  scientific  inquiry. 
The  first  operation  under  chloroform  was  performed 
in  1847.  Ether  and  nitrous  oxide  gas  had  been 
used  by  dentists  a  few  months  earlier.  But  the 
amount  of  torture  from  which  Sir  James  Simpson 
saved  the  human  race  can  neither  be  expressed  in 
words  nor  conceived  in  thought.  Students  of  final 
causes  may  perplex  themselves  by  asking  why  the 
existence  and  value  of  anaesthetics  were  hidden  for 
so  many  ages  from  the  knowledge  of  mankind. 
It  is  more  reasonable,  and  more  practical,  to  connect 
the  adoption  of  physical  discoveries  for  the  relief 
of  human  misery  with  the  growth  and  prevalence 
hi  modern  England  of  kindlier  instincts  than  our 
ancestors  possessed.  The  due  provision  and  proper 
regulation  of  public  asylums,  largely  due  to  the 
efforts  of  Lord  Ashley,  dates  from  the  fifth  decade 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  With  improved  treat- 
ment of  the  insane,  progress  was  made  in  the 
treatment  of  the  sick.  Medical  students  of 


THEOLOGY  AND  LITERATURE   157 

Dick    Sawyer's    type   disappeared,    and    hospitals  1847-49. 
gradually  began  to  fulfil    their  true  purpose    by 
providing   in  nourishment  as  well   as  in  surgery 
what    only   the   rich    could    obtain   at   their  own 
homes. 


CHAPTER    X 

LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH 

isco.  IT  is  a  popular  delusion  that  England  has  been 
Sto2rf  governed  since  the  Reform  Act  of  1832  by  the 
parties.  alternative  preponderance  of  parties,  sometimes 
called  the  swing  of  the  pendulum.  There  was  no 
swing  of  the  pendulum  between  1841  and  1868. 
Governments  were  kept  in  power  by  a  combination 
of  groups  until  the  working  classes  obtained  the 
franchise.  The  Protectionists  were  active  and 
adroit,  but  they  never  recovered  from  the  collapse 
of  1846.  The  Parliamentary  Reformers  were 
eager  and  enthusiastic,  but  for  many  years  their 
efforts  were  unavailing.  Early  in  1850  Mr. 
Feb.  ss  Hume,  the  most  persistent  of  them,  was  beaten 
by  242  votes  to  96  when  he  tried  to  intro- 
duce a  Bill  for  household  suffrage,  ballot,  and 
triennial  Parliaments.  He  overloaded  his  truck. 
But  he  made  an  impression  on  Lord  John,  who 
explained  that  his  famous  doctrine  of  finality 
Lord  John's  was  anything  rather  than  final.  The  least  final 
ofTnaiuJ?  things  in  politics  were  the  Budgets  of  Sir  Charles 
Wood.  In  1850,  with  an  estimated  surplus  of 
a  million  and  a  half,  he  proposed  to  repeal  the 
duty  on  bricks,  and  to  lower  the  value  of  the 
stamps  on  the  sale  or  mortgage  of  real  property. 
The  removal  of  the  brick  duty  had  been  suggested 
by  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  the  debate  on  Mr.  Disraeli's 
motion,  and  on  the  Stamp  Bill  the  Government 

153 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH    159 

were  compelled  by  successive  defeats  to  go  much  1850. 
further  than  they  intended.     A  motion  of  Lord 
Duncan's  for  the  repeal  of  the  window  tax  was 
only  rejected  by  a  majority  of  3,  and  this  odious 
survival  of  the  French  war  was  doomed. 

Another  private  member,  William  Ewart,  M.P. 
for  Dumfries,  a  man  foremost  in  many  wise  pro- 
jects of  social  and  political  reform,  carried  in  the 
same  session  a  modest  measure  of  incalculable  The  Free 
benefit  to  the  people.  This  Bill  allowed  the  local  Actra 
authorities  of  towns  with  a  population  of  ten 
thousand,  subsequently  lowered  to  five,  to  levy  a 
halfpenny  rate,  subsequently  raised  to  a  penny,  for 
the  building  and  maintenance  of  free  libraries. 
The  Government  supported  Mr.  Ewart,  and  his 
Bill  met  with  little  opposition,  except  from  that 
quaint  oddity,  Colonel  Sibthorp,  who  declared  that 
he  always  hated  reading,  "  even  when  he  was  at 
Oxford."  It  passed  through  the  House  of  Lords 
in  absolute  silence,  and  attracted  very  little  atten- 
tion at  the  time.  Manchester  was  the  first  town 
to  take  advantage  of  it.  The  free  library  there  was 
opened  in  September  1852  by  Dickens,  Thackeray, 
and  Bulwer.  The  movement  made  slow  pro- 
gress at  first,  and  it  was  not  till  1855  that  news- 
papers could  be  bought,  as  well  as  books,  at  the 
expense  of  the  ratepayers.  There  are  now  about 
four  hundred  and  fifty  libraries  supported  by  the 
rates,  and  the  number  of  volumes  they  contain  is 
estimated  at  six  millions  and  a  half. 

For  Ireland  in  1850  the  Government  introduced 
two  measures,  and  carried  one.     They  carried  a 
Reform  Bill,  required  by  the  melancholy  fact  that  The  Irish 
the  famine  had  so  diminished  the  population  as  to  ReforuiBiU- 
make   the   constituencies   absurdly   small.      They 
originally  proposed  an  eight  pound  franchise.     But 
the  Lords  raised  it  to  fifteen,  and  a  compromise  of 
twelve  was  finally  accepted.     A  more  ambitious 


160   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1850.  measure  was  a  Bill  for  the  abolition  of  the  Lord- 
SSB«OTof  Lieutenancy.  This  Bill  had  a  curious,  if  not  a 
SeauS?  singular  history.  Lord  John  Russell  urged  it  upon 
ancy-  the  House  of  Commons  with  all  the  energy  of  con- 
viction. He  went  back  to  George  the  Third,  and 
proved  that  that  least  innovating  of  monarchs  was 
opposed  to  the  retention  of  the  Viceregal  Court. 
He  dwelt  upon  the  anomalous  relations  of  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant  to  his  Chief  Secretary,  who  might  be 
his  master's  master  and  a  Mayor  of  the  Palace. 
There  were  in  those  days  three  secretaries  of  State, 
for  Home,  Foreign,  and  Colonial  Affairs  respec- 
tively. Lord  John  proposed  that  there  should  be 
a  fourth,  a  Secretary  of  State  for  Ireland.  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  while  holding  that  the  Home  Secretary 
might  undertake  the  administration  of  Ireland,  sup- 
ported the  abolition  of  the  Lord-Lieutenancy,  and 
the  second  reading  of  the  Bill  was  carried  on  Water- 
loo Day  by  295  votes  against  70.  That  was  the 
end  of  it.  It  never  reached  the  stage  of  Committee, 
and  was  never  brought  in  again.  There  is  no  other 
modern  example  of  a  Government  Bill  with  such 
an  immense  preponderance  of  opinion  in  its  favour 
being  so  completely  extinguished.  The  Duke  of 
Wellington  is  understood  to  have  disliked  the  Bill, 
on  the  ground  that  it  would  deprive  the  Crown  of 
direct  control  over  the  Irish  forces,  and  to  have 
infected  the  Court  with  his  dislike.  But  perhaps 
the  reputation  acquired  by  Lord  Clarendon  had 
even  more  to  do  with  the  matter.  Lord  Clarendon 
was  not  a  popular  Viceroy.  He  had  no  sympathy 
with  Irishmen,  or  with  Catholics.  But  he  was 
inflexibly  just,  and  his  conduct  in  removing  Lord 
Roden,  the  leader  of  the  Orange  party  in  the  north, 
from  the  commission  of  the  peace  for  encouraging 
the  turbulent  procession  at  Dolly's  Brae  met  with 
almost  universal  approval.  Lord  Stanley,  though 
he  did  not  dare  to  move  a  vote  of  censure,  criticised 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH    161 

this  action  of  the  Viceroy's  in  the  House  of  Lords,  isso. 
But  Lord  Clarendon,  with  much  reluctance,  came 
over  to  vindicate  himself,  and  his  vindication  was 
triumphant.     Lord  Stanley,  as  Sancho  Panza  says, 
came  for  wool,  and  went  away  shorn. 

A  Bill  of  much  more  practical  importance  was  Jj!£  j^ 
carried  through  the  House  of  Commons  by  Lord  m'ent  BUI 
Ashley,  and  became  law.  The  Factory  Act  of 
1847  was  supposed  to  have  prevented  the  employ- 
ment of  women  and  young  persons  for  more  than 
ten  hours  in  the  twenty -four.  But  a  flaw  was 
discovered  in  the  drafting  of  the  Act,  which  was 
an  early  example  of  legislation  by  reference.1  It 
amended  Sir  James  Graham's  Act  of  1844,  which 
allowed  factories  to  be  open  from  half-past  five  in 
the  morning  till  half -past  eight  in  the  evening. 
Most  employers,  and  all  the  best  of  them,  were 
loyal  to  the  spirit  of  the  new  law.  But  a  few  held 
out,  and  by  a  system  of  relays,  made  it  impossible 
for  the  inspectors  to  ascertain  whether  a  woman  or 
young  person  was  employed  for  more  than  ten 
hours  or  not.  The  magistrates  refused  to  convict, 
and  at  length  a  case  was  stated  for  the  Court  of 
Exchequer.  The  Court  of  Exchequer  was  then 
dominated  by  Mr.  Baron  Parke,  afterwards  Lord 
Wensleydale,  a  judge  of  great  learning  and  still 
greater  subtlety,  who  had  the  reputation  of  doing 
more  injustice  according  to  law  than  any  of  his 
colleagues  on  the  Bench.  The  Court  decided  in 
favour  of  the  recalcitrant  manufacturers,  holding 
that  laws  in  restraint  of  trade  must  be  construed 
strictly,  though,  as  Lord  Ashley  put  it,  they  might 
better  have  held  that  laws  for  the  protection  of 
the  weak  should  be  construed  liberally.  In  con- 
sequence of  this  judgment,  delivered  early  in  the 
year,  Lord  Ashley  introduced  an  amending  Bill, 

1  Reference  to  the  words  of  previous  statutes.     Few  methods  are 
more  confusing. 

VOL.  I  M 


162   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860,  which  the  Government  supported,  and  took  into 
March  14.  their  own  hands.  Sir  George  Grey,  whose  modera- 
tion was  his  nearest  approach  to  a  vice,  proposed  a 
compromise,  which,  however,  was  upon  the  whole 
a  satisfactory  one,  and  one  that  Lord  Ashley  did 
well  to  accept.  The  Home  Secretary  suggested, 
and  it  was  agreed,  that  factories  might  be  open 
from  six  in  the  morning  till  six  in  the  evening, 
with  intervals  of  not  less  than  an  hour  and  a  half 
for  meals.  This  meant  a  ten  hours  and  a  half  day, 
which  did  not  satisfy  the  enthusiasts,  and  drew 
down  upon  Lord  Ashley  much  unmerited  abuse. 
He  felt  it  keenly.  A  sincere  philanthropist,  in- 
different to  political  office,  for  which  he  was  pre- 
eminently fit,  lavishing  his  time,  and  what  little 
money  he  had,  upon  the  moral  and  material  wel- 
fare of  the  masses,  he  had,  despite  the  intensity  of 
his  religious  convictions,  a  thoroughly  human  love 
of  popularity.  But  on  this  occasion  he  sacrificed 
it  to  the  good  of  those  who  abused  him,  and  he 
was  rewarded  by  the  smooth  progress  of  the 
measure  through  both  Houses  of  Parliament.  Mr. 
Bright  opposed  it  in  a  narrow  and  selfish  spirit  as 
the  result  of  "  ignorance  and  sentimentalism. "  Lord 
John  Manners  supported  it  with  a  vigour  and  an 
eloquence  which  entitled  him  to  future  distinction. 
Attempts  to  enlarge  the  Bill  by  including  regula- 
tions for  the  labour  of  children  failed,  and  stood 
over  for  the  future.  But  the  Factory  Act  of  1850 
is  the  foundation  of  a  beneficent  and  enlightened 
code.  That  code  has  since  been  developed  with  a 
thoroughness  and  minuteness  of  which  even  Lord 
Ashley  did  not  then  dream,  to  the  infinite  advantage 
of  the  working  classes,  but  without  the  smallest 
detriment  to  trade. 

sabbatari-  Lord  Ashley's  other  achievement  during  the 
thespostnd  session  of  1850  was  less  successful,  and  procured 
offlce  him,  if  possible,  still  more  abuse.  On  the  30th 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH     163 

of  May  he  moved  and  carried  in  the  House  ofisso. 
Commons  a  resolution  against  the  delivery  of 
letters  on  Sunday,  thus  extending  to  all  parts  of 
the  United  Kingdom  the  practice  which  already 
prevailed  in  London.  The  Government  through 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  opposed  the 
motion.  But  their  control  over  the  House  was 
feeble,  and  they  were  beaten  on  a  division  by  93 
votes  to  68.  This  was  a  great  triumph  for  Lord 
Ashley,  a  rigid  Sabbatarian,  who  confounded  Sunday 
with  the  Sabbath.  But  considering  the  smallness 
of  the  numbers,  a  strong  Government  would  have 
found  some  way  of  surmounting  the  difficulty. 
The  Government  of  Lord  John  Russell  took  the 
high  constitutional  line.  They  disapproved  of  the 
change,  and  acknowledged  all  its  inconveniences. 
But  the  representatives  of  the  people  had  spoken, 
and  it  was  the  duty  of  the  executive  to  obey.  So 
the  public  went  without  their  Sunday  letters,  until 
gradually  a  ground-swell  of  grumbling  was  blown 
into  a  storm  of  protest.  Lord  Ashley  became  the 
most  unpopular  man  in  England,  except  perhaps 
Lord  Clanricarde,  the  Postmaster -General.  At 
length  a  way  was  found,  and  on  the  9th  of  July 
Mr.  Locke,  Member  for  Honiton,  the  railway 
engineer,  carried  a  motion  for  inquiry.  The  Com- 
missioners speedily  reported  that  the  nuisance  was 
intolerable,  and  the  Government  reverted  to  the 
custom  of  former  times. 

So  long  as  he  remained  a  member  of  Lord  John  M«ner- 

TH-I-.  •  T  i    -r-»    i  i  stons 

Russell  s  administration,  Lord  Palmerston  pursued  triumph. 
with  characteristic  vigour  and  pertinacity  a  foreign 
policy  of  his  own.  He  consulted  his  colleagues  as 
little  as  possible,  and  was  far  from  regular  in  his 
communications  with  the  Queen.  He  had  the 
Court  against  him,  and  was  distrusted  by  the 
Cabinet.  With  the  exception  of  Sardinia,  Switzer- 
land, Turkey,  Belgium,  and  Denmark,  foreign 


164   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1849.  Powers  abhorred  him.  But  among  the  middle 
classes  he  was  the  most  popular  man  in  the 
Government,  and  his  jaunty  cocksure  attitude  was 
singularly  effective  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
It  must,  however,  be  borne  in  mind  that  his  flip- 
pancy was  a  calculated  pose,  and  his  levity  a  trick 
of  manner.  He  was  in  truth  a  most  laborious 
Minister,  clear-sighted,  though  not  far-sighted, 
profoundly  versed  in  the  secrets  of  European 
diplomacy,  and  always  knowing  his  own  mind. 
His  beautiful  handwriting,  which  Mr.  Gladstone 
used  to  say  was  the  one  perfect  specimen  of  calli- 
graphy he  had  ever  known,  was  a  faithful  illustra- 
tion of  the  clearness  and  firmness  with  which  he 
formed  his  own  opinions,  and  adhered  to  them. 
His  policy  has  been  already  described  as  one  of 
general  interference  in  the  affairs  of  Europe.  It 
cannot  be  appreciated  without  reference  to  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  time.  Europe  was 
still  governed  by  the  Treaty  of  Vienna.  Mr. 
Canning,  in  one  of  the  most  famous  passages  of 
his  noble  oratory,  has  compared  the  state  of  the 
Continent  after  the  fall  of  Napoleon  with  the  re- 
appearance of  ancient  landmarks  after  the  sub- 
sidence of  a  mighty  flood.  For  the  preservation 
of  those  landmarks  the  great  Powers  represented 
at  Vienna  had  made  themselves  collectively  re- 
sponsible. Palmerston  accepted  the  responsibility 
on  behalf  of  England  with  the  reservation  that  she 
should  discourage  despotism,  and  favour  constitu- 
tional government.  He  repudiated  altogether  the 
doctrine  of  non-intervention.  England  was  to  him 
palmer-  not  an  isolated  Power,  not  the  centre  of  a  Colonial 
tervention.  system,  but  an  active  and  leading  member  of  the 
European  family.  He  cared  very  little  for  the 
Colonies.  They  had  grown  up,  so  to  speak,  since 
his  time.  India  did  not  much  concern  him.  But 
he  was  determined  to  assert  the  position  of  his 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH     165 

country  as  the  first  of  nations,  and  the  example  1349. 
to  all  others.  The  events  of  1848  and  1849  had 
greatly  strengthened  him  in  this  respect.  For  they 
had  shown  that  England  was  enabled  by  the 
stability  of  her  ordered  freedom  to  weather  a  storm 
which  had  deposed  an  Emperor,  destroyed  a 
Monarchy,  driven  a  Crown  Prince  into  temporary 
exile,  and  sent  the  most  renowned  statesmen  of 
the  old  school,  Prince  Metternich  and  M.  Guizot, 
to  wander  painfully  in  foreign  lands.  Next  to 
England  in  the  success  with  which  she  had  stood 
against  revolution  was  the  little  kingdom  of  Belgium, 
and  Belgium  was  Palmerston's  pet  child.  In  Italy 
his  policy  had  so  far  proved  a  failure,  and  in  Spain 
his  meddlesome  interference  had  been  futile.  But 
he  had  saved  Switzerland  from  disruption  ;  he  had 
preserved  Schleswig-Holstein  to  Denmark;  and 
his  protection  of  the  Hungarian  refugees  had  won 
for  him  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  the  Radicals. 
Greece  was  destined  to  be  the  climax  of  his  fame. 
But  before  we  consider  the  blockade  of  the  Piraeus, 
and  the  momentous  consequences  which  followed 
it,  a  word  must  be  said  about  the  attack  made  in 
the  House  of  Commons  upon  the  employment  of 
a  British  squadron  off  the  coast  of  Africa  for  the 
suppression  of  slavery.  This  attack  was  a  false  raeA 
move  on  the  part  of  the  Opposition,  and  though 
Palmerston  was  silent  in  the  debate,  he  reaped  no 
small  advantage  from  it.  The  gentlemen  who  had 
been  so  anxious  on  purely  philanthropic  grounds 
to  impose  a  protective  and  prohibitive  duty  upon 
sugar  grown  by  slaves  grudged  the  money  spent  in 
directly  preventing  the  most  odious  form  of  traffic 
ever  invented.  They  made  a  deliberate  attempt 
to  overthrow  the  Cabinet  for  the  sake  of  this 
miserable  economy,  and  they  enlisted  in  their 
service  the  eloquence  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  whose  zeal 
against  negro  slavery  was  always  cool.  The  Prime 


166   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860.  Minister,  however,  felt  himself  on  strong  ground, 
and  took  a  bold  line.  The  motion,  which  stood 
in  the  name  of  Mr.  Hutt,1  was  set  down  for  the 
19th  of  March  1850.  On  that  morning  Lord 
John  Russell  assembled  his  party,  and  told  them 
in  plain  language  that  if  he  were  beaten  he  should 
resign.  He  stood,  he  said,  upon  the  principles  of 
Mr.  Fox,  and  he  would  not  desert  them.  In  the 
House  of  Commons  he  rode  the  high  horse,  and 
rode  it  successfully.  The  motion  was  defeated 
by  78  votes,  and  the  squadron  was  maintained. 
The  voice  was  Russell's  voice,  but  the  hand 
was  the  hand  of  Palmerston. 

The  case  of  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  who  called  the  battle 
ami  Sonay  of  Navarino  an  untoward  event,  lived  to  witness  the 
occurrence  in  the  same  quarter  of  an  event  still 
more  untoward.  On  the  18th  of  January  1850, 
Admiral  Sir  William  Parker,  instructed  by  the 
Foreign  Office  through  the  Admiralty,  proclaimed 
a  blockade  of  the  Piraeus.  Greek  ships  were  pre- 
vented from  leaving,  and  were  detained  as  hostages. 
The  pretexts  for  this  high-handed  proceeding, 
which  nearly  involved  the  whole  of  Europe  in  war, 
were  various.  Several  British  subjects,  of  whom 
the  most  respectable  was  Mr.  Finlay,  and  the  most 
notorious  was  Don  Pacifico,  had  made  claims  upon 
the  Greek  Government  for  redress  which  had  not 
been  granted.  Mr.  Finlay  was  not  then  known  as 
the  illustrious  historian  of  the  country  which  he 
made  his  home,  but  as  a  "  canny  Scot "  with  a 
grievance  against  the  King  of  Greece.  The  King 
had  taken  for  the  gardens  of  his  palace  some  land 
upon  which  Mr.  Finlay's  house  stood.  He  did  not 
propose  to  take  it  for  nothing,  but  he  considered, 
or  his  Ministers  considered,  that  Mr.  Finlay's  de- 
mands were  altogether  preposterous.  They  were, 
in  fact,  enormously  in  excess  of  what  he  had  paid 
for  the  land,  and  considerably  in  excess  of  what 

1  Afterwards  Sir  William  Hutt,  K.C.B. 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH     167 

any  arbitrator  would  have  given  him*  David  isso. 
Pacifico  was  a  Portuguese  Jew,  born  in  Malta,  and 
therefore  a  British  subject.  His  house  had  been 
wrecked  and  gutted  by  an  Athenian  mob,  who 
were  furious  because,  owing  to  the  presence  of  a 
Rothschild  in  the  town,  they  had  not  been  allowed 
their  annual  amusement  of  burning  Judas  Iscariot 
at  Easter.  The  man  was  undoubtedly  entitled  to 
compensation.  But  the  amount  for  which  he  asked, 
and  the  items  of  which  his  bill  was  composed,  were 
so  ludicrously  extravagant  as  to  provoke  universal 
laughter.  A  still  more  fatal  point,  however,  both 
in  his  case  and  in  Mr.  Finlay's,  was  that  they 
appealed  to  Great  Britain  for  satisfaction  without 
having  first  applied  to  the  Greek  courts  for  damages. 
It  was  idle  to  say  that  they  would  not  have  got 
justice.  If  they  had  failed,  then  would  have  been 
the  time  for  diplomatic  action.  Even  if  Mr.  Finlay 
could  not  have  sued  the  King  in  person,  he  could 
have  sued  the  Government,  who  actually  proposed 
arbitration.  The  leaders  of  the  wholly  unjustifiable 
assault  upon  Pacifico's  house  were  perfectly  well 
known,  and  some  of  them  were  men  of  substance. 
There  were  no  doubt  good  reasons  why  David 
Pacifico  should  have  shrunk  from  entering  a  court 
of  law.  He  must  have  felt  that  the  part  of  it 
appropriate  to  him  was  not  that  in  which  parties 
or  witnesses  sit.  He  was  strongly  suspected  ofpadflco-s 
forgery,  and  one  of  the  demands  which  he  had  the character< 
impudence  to  make  upon  the  Greek  authorities 
was  for  the  loss  of  papers  proving  the  liability  of 
Portugal  for  a  debt  declared  by  the  Portuguese 
Minister  to  be  fraudulent.  Although  he  gave 
himself  out  to  be  a  pauper,  and  declared  that  he 
had  not  an  obolus  at  the  bank,  the  furniture  and 
linen  included  in  his  bill  of  costs  were  of  the  most 
luxurious  and  magnificent  kind.  Mr.  Finlay  had 
not  this  paltry  scoundrel's  excuse  for  avoiding  the 


168   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860,  ordinary  tribunals.  He  simply  wanted  to  get  as 
much  as  he  could,  and  he  thought  he  could  get  the 
most  through  Lord  Palmerston.1  Besides  these 

grimiiceB.  claims  there  were  grievances  of  lonians  resident  in 
Greece  which  were  serious  enough  if  true,  and 
which  concerned  Great  Britain  because  the  Ionian 
Islands  were  then  under  British  protection.  But 
no  sufficient  investigation  was  made  into  the  truth 
of  the  charges,  many  of  which  were  afterwards 
shown  to  be  unfounded.  The  crew  of  a  boat  be- 
longing to  H.M.S.  Fantome  had  been  by  some 
stupid  mistake  arrested,  and  they  had  suffered  the 
loss  of  their  boat-hook.  To  these  complaints  Lord 
Palmerston  added  a  pretence  that  the  two  small 
islands  of  Cervi  and  Sapienza  were  British,  not 
Greek.  They  had  been  treated  since  1830  as 
Greek.  But,  Greek  or  British,  they  were  unin- 
habited, and  were  not  worth  a  five  pound  note 
between  them. 

In  despatching  his  orders  to  Sir  William  Parker, 
Lord  Palmerston  had  reckoned  without  France  and 
Russia,  who  were,  with  England,  the  joint  guar- 

»w>.6.  antors  of  Greek  independence.  France  offered, 
through  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  the  French  Am- 
bassador in  London,  to  mediate  between  the  two 

offerof       Powers.     The  offer  was  accepted,  and  Baron  Gros 

2£eptedn    was  sent  to  Athens  to   confer  with   the  British 

1  Sir  Spencer  Walpole  (History  of  England,  iv.  578),  contradicting 
Sir  Theodore  Martin  (Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,  ii.  270)  and  Mr. 
McCarthy  (History  of  Our  Own  Times,  ii.  43),  argues  that  neither  Mr. 
Finlay  nor  Pacifico  could  have  appealed  to  the  courts  of  law.  His 
reasons  are  that  Pacifico  could  not  bring  an  action  against  a  crowd  ; 
that  when  the  King  took  Mr.  Finlay's  land  he  was  an  absolute  monarch ; 
and  that  courts  set  up  under  the  Constitution  of  1843  would  not  in- 
quire into  events  which  happened  before  that  date.  It  has  been  stated 
in  the  text  that  among  the  mob  who  sacked  Pacifico  were  well-known 
Athenians  who  could  certainly  have  been  made  liable  in  substantial 
sums.  The  point  about  the  jurisdiction  of  the  courts  was  raised  by 
Finlay  himself.  But  the  Greek  Government  repudiated  it  and  Mr. 
Gladstone  tore  it  to  pieces  in  the  House  of  Commons.  If  the  Greek 
courts  had  refused  to  do  justice,  a  case  for  diplomatic  remonstrance 
would  have  arisen.  They  did  not  refuse,  because  they  were  not  asked. 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH     169 

Minister,  Mr.  Wyse.     Early  in  March  Russia  took  isso. 
a  much  stronger,  and  a  much  more  disagreeable 
step.    Count  Nesselrode  addressed  to  Lord  Palmer  - 
ston,   through    Baron    Brunnow,    a    very   strong 
despatch,  protesting  against  the  coercion  of  small  Russia's 
States  by  the  maritime  power  of  England.     There P 
is  much  truth  and  much  justice  in  this  document, 
to  which  Palmerston  sent  a  very  mild  and  con- 
ciliatory reply.     The  mission  of  Baron  Gros  was 
a  failure,  and  the  failure  was  Palmerston's  fault. 
The  Baron,  whose  good  faith  was  unquestionable, 
found    that    Pacifico's    Portuguese    claims    were 
moonshine,  and  that  in  his  other  claims  there  was 
much  exaggeration.     By  arrangement  in  London 
between  Palmerston  and  Drouyn  de  Lhuys  joint 
instructions  were  to  be  sent  for  a  settlement  of  the 
whole  case.     Baron  Gros  received  his  instructions. 
Mr.  Wyse  did  not.     Thereupon,  in  May,  General 
Lahitte,  the  Foreign  Minister  of  the  French  Re-  Misunde 
public,    recalled   M.   Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  and  Mr.  $thding 
Wyse  proceeded,  with  the  assistance  of  Sir  William  France- 
Parker,    to   enforce    payment   from    Greece.      A 
diplomatic  rupture  with  France  seemed  imminent. 
But   Lord   Normanby   was   not   withdrawn   from 
Paris,  and  ultimately  the  terms  which  Palmerston 
had  conceded  to  Drouyn  de  Lhuys  were  adopted 
by  the  British  Government. 

At  this  moment  the  relations  of  Palmerston 
with  his  colleagues  were  strained  almost  to  the 
breaking  point.  Knowing  very  well  that  Drouyn 
de  Lhuys  had  been  recalled,  he  allowed,  or  rather  May  m 
requested  the  Prime  Minister  and  the  President  of 
the  Council  to  say  that  he  had  not.  The  next  day 
they  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  themselves  contra- 
dicted and  refuted  in  the  French  Chamber  by 
General  Lahitte.  But  long  before  this  critical 
date,  when  the  Russian  Ambassador  refused  to 
attend  Palmerston's  dinner  for  the  Queen's  Birthday, 


170   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1850.  the  Foreign  Secretary  and  the  Cabinet  had  been 
at  daggers'  drawn.  The  "  Greville  Memoirs  "  teem 
with  evidence  of  this  fact ;  but  a  single  extract 
will  suffice.  Writing  on  the  14th  of  February 
1850,  Greville  says :  "  This  Greek  question  is  the 
worst  scrape  into  which  Palmerston  has  ever  got 
himself  and  his  colleagues.  The  disgust  at  it  here 
is  universal  with  those  who  think  at  all  about 
foreign  matters :  it  is  past  all  doubt  that  it  has 
produced  the  strongest  feelings  of  indignation 
against  this  country  all  over  Europe,  and  the 
Ministers  themselves  are  conscious  what  a  dis- 
graceful figure  they  cut,  and  are  ashamed  of  it. 
Labouchere l  came  into  my  room  yesterday,  and 
let  loose  about  it  without  reserve.  He  said  it 
admitted  of  no  excuse,  and  that  John  Russell,  who 
alone  could  have  prevented  it,  was  inexcusable  for 
not  having  done  so ;  that  it  ought  to  have  been 
brought  regularly  and  formally  before  the  Cabinet, 
who  ought  all  to  have  known  precisely  what  it  was 
Palmerston  proposed  to  do.  Papers,  indeed,  were 
sent  round  in  boxes,  and  Palmerston  defended 
himself  on  this  ground,  and  asked  why  they  did 
not  read  them  ;  but  (said  Labouchere)  how  was  it 
possible  for  men  who  had  large  departments  with 
a  vast  deal  of  business  of  their  own  to  read  all  the 
papers  which  were  brought  round  in  circulation  ? 
They  neither  did  nor  could."  This  is  a  miserable 
excuse,  and  Palmerston's  defence,  as  against  the 
Cabinet,  was  perfectly  sound.  But  at  the  same 
time  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  colleagues  were 
at  this  period  highly  exasperated  with  him,  that 
they  considered  he  had  passed  the  bounds,  and  that 
they  were  resolved  to  rid  themselves  of  him  once 
for  all.  The  Queen  and  Prince  Albert  were  only 
waiting  for  the  signal.  Lord  John  Russell  was  con- 
stantly being  pressed  to  take  some  decisive  step  by 

1  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade. 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH    171 

Lord  Clarendon,  Lord  Lansdowne,  Lord  Grey,  isso. 
and  his  own  brother,  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  whose 
extensive  correspondence  included  the  Court. 
Lord  John  was  to  take  the  Foreign  Office  himself, 
thus  anticipating  the  precedent  made  by  Lord 
Salisbury  a  quarter  of  a  century  afterwards.  But 
Palmerston  was  saved  by  the  Opposition.  Lord 
Stanley  gave  notice  that  he  would  move  a  vote  of  thl 
censure  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  in  Bulwertu 
Lytton's  phrase  "  languid  Johnny  turned  to 
glorious  John."  The  Prime  Minister  was  by 
instinct  a  fighting  man,  and,  thus  challenged,  he 
made  Lord  Palmerston's  cause  his  own. 

To  raise  the  question  in  the  House  of  Lords  The  vote  oi 
was  a  blunder  in  tactics,  which  has  never  been 
adequately  explained.  It  was  probably  due  in  part 
to  Lord  Palmerston's  popularity  with  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  in  part  to  Lord  Stanley's  im- 
perfect sympathy  with  Mr.  Disraeli.  After  having 
been  several  times  postponed  at  the  request  of  the 
Government,  who  pleaded  the  danger  of  disturb- 
ing the  negotiations  with  France,  Lord  Stanley's 
motion  was  made  on  the  18th  of  June.  Lord 
Stanley  could  make  even  a  bad  case  seem  a  good 
one,  and  this  case  was  a  very  good  one  indeed. 
Accordingly  he  delivered  a  speech  of  remarkable 
eloquence  and  power.  In  the  beautifully  perspicu- 
ous language  of  which  he  was  a  master,  and  with 
the  sarcastic  irony  in  which  he  excelled,  he  cut 
Palmerston's  Greek  policy  to  pieces,  and  exposed 
it  to  the  ridicule  of  the  House.  No  real  answer 
was  made.  Lord  Lansdowne's  perfunctory  reply 
was  wretchedly  weak.  It  was  the  speech  of  a 
man  who  agreed  with  the  Opposition,  and  dis- 
agreed with  his  own  colleagues.  Lord  Aberdeen, 
in  a  grave,  dignified,  and  temperate  address,  en- 
forced the  conclusions  of  Lord  Derby.  Lord 
Canning  highly  distinguished  himself  on  the  same 


172   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860.  side.  Lord  Brougham,  who  was  always  afraid  of 
offending  Lord  Palmerston,  added  nothing  to  the 
strength  of  the  attack.  But  the  weight  of  argu- 
ment was  all  one  way,  and  to  the  weight  of  argu- 
ment was  added  the  weight  of  numbers.  As  the 
morning  sun  shone  into  the  House  of  Lords,  the 
tellers  announced  that  the  Contents  exceeded  the 
Defeat  of  Not  Contents  by  37.  But  the  victory  was  a 

the  Govern-  —^f  _      ,  J 

ment.  Pyrrhic  one.  1  he  terms  ot  the  motion 1  were  in 
one  respect  unfortunate.  They  were  capable  of 
being  interpreted  to  mean  that  Englishmen  must 
submit  to  the  laws  of  any  country  in  which  they 
resided,  however  iniquitous  those  laws  might  be. 
They  played  into  Palmerston's  hands,  and  he  must 
have  chuckled  when  he  read  them. 

indecision  The  Cabinet  at  once  met  and  decided  not  to 
cabinet,  resign.  That  their  decision  was  constitutionally 
sound  nobody  would  now  dispute.  The  assent  of 
the  Lords  is  necessary  to  all  legislation.  But  they 
have  not  the  power  of  the  purse,  and  therefore 
have  no  control  over  the  Executive  Government. 
To  resign  on  the  defeat  of  the  Navigation  Bill 
would  have  violated  no  precedent  or  usage, 
though  it  would  have  been  unwise.  To  resign 
on  Lord  Stanley's  resolution  would  have  been  a 
betrayal  of  popular  rights.  On  the  20th  of  June 
Lord  John  Russell,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Roebuck, 
plainly  declared  the  course  of  the  Government. 
Quoting  a  precedent  of  1710,  and  another  of  1833, 
he  announced  that  the  Cabinet  would  remain  in 
office,  and  would  not  alter  their  policy  to  please 

1  "  That  while  the  House  fully  recognises  the  right  and  duty  of  the 
Government  to  secure  to  Her  Majesty's  subjects  residing  in  foreign 
States  the  full  protection  of  the  laws  of  those  States,  it  regrets  to  find, 
by  the  correspondence  recently  laid  upon  the  table  by  Her  Majesty's 
commands,  that  various  claims  against  the  Greek  Government,  doubt- 
ful in  point  of  justice  or  exaggerated  in  amount,  have  been  enforced  by 
coercive  measures  against  the  commerce  and  people  of  Greece,  and 
calculated  to  endanger  the  continuance  of  our  friendly  relations  with 
other  Powers." 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH     173 

the  House  of  Lords.  He  concluded  by  saying,  isso. 
with  great  emphasis,  and  amidst  loud  applause, 
"  My  noble  friend  is  not  the  Minister  of  Austria, 
nor  the  Minister  of  Russia,  nor  the  Minister  of 
France,  but  the  Minister  of  England."  It  was  a  "The 
blunder  in  the  circumstances  to  mention  France.  England™1 
But  the  Czar  at  least  had  no  right  to  be  surprised, 
and  this  is  the  sort  of  declaration,  as  Lord  John 
well  knew,  which  always  goes  down  with  the 
House  of  Commons.  To  that  House  the  Govern- 
ment had  virtually  appealed,  and  on  the  24th  of 
June  Mr.  Roebuck  moved  a  general  resolution  in 
support  of  their  foreign  policy.  This  was  a  very 
adroit  shifting  of  the  issue.  Pacifico  and  his  bed- 
curtains  were  forgotten.  The  pathetic  remonstrance 
of  the  Greek  Premier,  in  which  he  invoked  the 
chivalry  of  a  strong  nation  to  respect  the  rights 
of  a  weak  one,  fell  into  the  background.  Lord 
Palmerston  was  enabled  to  come  forward  as  the 
champion  of  constitutional  liberty  throughout  the 
Continent  of  Europe.  The  debate  which  followed  The  debate 
lasted  four  nights,  and  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  commons. 
to  which  the  House  of  Commons  ever  listened.  It 
contained  the  finest  of  all  Lord  Palmerston's  speeches, 
the  first  great  speech  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  last 
speech  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  the  most  elaborate 
of  those  forensic  harangues,  delivered  successively 
at  the  Bar,  in  the  Senate,  and  on  the  Bench,  by  the 
accomplished  personage  best  known  as  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Cockburn.  The  most  formidable,  if  not 
indeed  the  only  serious  part  of  the  attack,  was  led 
by  the  Peelites,  headed  by  Sir  James  Graham, 
though  they  were  supported  by  Mr.  Cobden  and 
Sir  William  Molesworth.  On  the  second  night 
Lord  Palmerston  replied,  with,  as  Greville  says, 
"  prodigious  force  and  success."  It  was  indeed  a  Palmer 
masterly  speech.  He  rose  at  half-past  ten.  He 
sat  down  at  half-past  three,  having  spoken  from 


174   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860,  the  dusk  of  one  day  to  the  dawn  of  the  next. 
"  It  made  us  all  proud  of  him  "  was  the  verdict 
of  his  most  illustrious  opponent.  He  never 
came  up  to  it,  before  or  afterwards.  Parlia- 
mentary oratory  was  not  his  strongest  point,  and 
he  was  at  his  best  in  the  Foreign  Office  with  his 
pen.  But  on  that  occasion  he  surpassed  himself, 
and  even  at  this  distance  of  time  it  is  impossible 
to  read  the  great  defence  of  the  Minister  at  bay 
without  a  thrill  of  admiration.  He  was  sober, 
restrained,  powerful,  unflinching.  He  entirely 
threw  over  Lord  John  Russell's  plea  that  he  was 
merely  the  Minister  of  England,  and  asserted  the 
right  of  this  country  to  promote  the  cause  of  con- 
stitutional government  throughout  Europe.  He 
shattered  the  clearly  false  doctrine  of  the  Lords 
that  British  subjects  were  only  entitled  to  such 
protection  as  might  be  given  them  by  the  laws  of 
the  nation  in  which  they  resided.  At  great  length, 
and  with  much  minuteness,  he  vindicated  his  policy 
in  Italy,  in  Hungary,  and  in  Spain.  He  passed 
lightly  and  adroitly  over  his  meek  reply  to  Russia, 
and  his  tardy  adhesion  to  the  requirements  of 
France.  He  taunted  Lord  Aberdeen  with  in- 
consistency in  having  protested  against  King 
Otho's  dismissal  of  Sir  Richard  Church  from  the 
command  of  the  Greek  forces,  and  he  proclaimed 
that  his  own  moderate  Liberalism  was  the  one 
successful  method  of  averting  revolution.  He 
had  been  accused  of  procuring  the  downfall  of 
the  French  Monarchy.  This  gave  him  an  op- 
portunity of  which  he  availed  himself  with  a 
skill  which  amounted  to  genius.  The  French, 
he  said,  were  a  brave  and  high-spirited  people. 
If  they  thought  that  there  was  a  foreign  con- 
spiracy against  one  of  their  Ministers,  they  would 
stand  by  him  to  the  death.  This  passage,  of 
which  the  dullest  could  not  mistake  the  meaning, 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH    175 

was  received  with  the  sort  of  applause  reserved  1350. 
by  the  House  of  Commons  for  rare  and  memor- 
able occasions.     In  his  peroration  Palmerston  was 
equally  felicitous.      He   struck  the  popular  note 
when  he  cited  the  old  boast  Civis  Romanus  sum,  a™ 
and  claimed  that  wherever  a  British  subject  might 
be,  the  watchful  eye  and  the  strong  arm  of  England 
would  protect  him  against  injustice  and  wrong. 

The  task  of  answering  this  speech  fell  to  Mr.  Gladstone1. 
Gladstone,  who  performed  it  not  only  with  elo- re 
quence,  but  also  with  that  dauntless  courage  which 
never  deserted  him  through  life.  He  opposed  to 
Palmerston's  doctrine  of  a  British  citizenship  equal 
with  the  Roman  a  theory  of  a  very  different  kind. 
He  dared  to  talk  Christian  doctrine  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  "  It  would  be  a  contravention  of 
the  law  of  nature  and  of  God,"  he  said,  "  if  it  were 
possible  for  any  single  nation  of  Christendom  to 
emancipate  itself  from  the  obligations  which  bind 
all  other  nations,  and  to  arrogate,  in  the  forum  of 
mankind,  a  position  of  peculiar  privilege.  And 
now  I  will  grapple  with  the  noble  lord  on  the 
ground  which  he  selected  for  himself,  in  the  most 
triumphant  portion  of  his  speech,  by  his  reference 
to  those  emphatic  words,  Civis  Romanus  sum.  He 
vaunted,  amidst  the  cheers  of  his  supporters,  that 
under  his  Administration  an  Englishman  should 
be  throughout  the  world  what  the  citizens  of 
Rome  had  been.  What,  then,  Sir,  was  a  Roman 
citizen  ?  He  was  the  member  of  a  privileged  caste  : 
he  belonged  to  a  conquering  race,  to  a  nation  that 
held  all  others  bound  down  by  the  strong  arm  of 
power.  For  him  there  was  to  be  an  exceptional 
system  of  law ;  for  him  principles  were  to  be 
asserted,  and  by  him  rights  were  to  be  enjoyed, 
that  were  denied  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  Is  such, 
then,  the  view  of  the  noble  lord  as  to  the  relation 
which  is  to  subsist  between  England  and  other 


176   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860,  countries  ? "  Such  was  the  view  of  the  "  noble 
lord,"  and  it  was  shared  by  the  people  of  England. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  on  the  unpopular  side,  and 
he  knew  it. 

Far  different  was  the  attitude  of  Mr.  Cockburn, 
tion.  who  undertook  the  task  of  answering  a  really  un- 
answerable speech.  For  mere  cleverness,  Mr. 
Cockburn's  contribution  to  this  memorable  debate 
would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  surpass. 
He  had  all  the  qualifications  of  an  orator  and  a 
special  pleader,  including  a  voice  whose  melodious 
richness  was  unimpaired  to  the  day  of  his  death. 
He  had  got  up  the  Blue  Book  as  well  as  a  busy 
lawyer  could,  and,  not  caring  two  straws  about  the 
matter,  he  was  more  Palmerstonian  than  Lord 
Palmerston  himself.  The  first  part  of  his  oration, 
chiefly  consisting  in  abuse  of  the  Greek  Govern- 
ment, and  in  skilful  play  upon  Sir  James  Graham's 
unlucky  sneer  at  nisi  prius,1  was  mere  claptrap. 
The  conclusion,  in  which  the  future  Chief  Justice 
attacked  the  combination  of  Peelites  and  Protec- 
tionists, was  exceedingly  adroit.  The  defeat  of 
Mr.  Roebuck's  motion  meant  the  resignation  of 
the  Government.  Who  would  succeed  it,  and 
what  would  be  the  commercial  policy  of  the  new 
Administration  ?  Mr.  Gladstone  had  spoken  as 
the  representative  of  Lord  Stanley  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  Would  he  help  Lord  Stanley  to 
revive  the  Corn  Laws  ?  The  answer  to  these 
pointed  and  perfectly  legitimate  questions  could 
not  be  given  then,  but  it  can  be  given  now.  If 
Lord  John  Russell  and  Lord  Palmerston  had  been 
beaten,  they  would  have  been  succeeded  by  Sir 
Robert  Peel  and  Lord  Aberdeen.  Peel  would 
never  have  acquiesced  in  the  formation  of  a 

1  Following  several  lawyers  in  debate,  Sir  James  expressed  the 
opinion  that  the  House  had  had  enough  of  nisi  prius,  meaning  purely 
forensic  argument. 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH     177 

Protectionist  Government.     This  is  proved  by  the  i860. 
following  passage  in  the  Peel  Papers :l     "  In  1850,  gj*'J£{J|- 
not  long  before  his  death,  walking  home  from  the take  offlce- 
House  of  Commons  with  Mr.  Cardwell,  who  lived 
next  door  to  him,  and  repeating  his  determination 
to  do  anything  rather  than  allow  the  renewal  of 
the  taxes  on  food,  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  reminded 
by  his  friend  and  follower  of  the  general  belief  that 
he  had  resolved  under  no  circumstances  to  resume 
office.     With  a  gesture  habitual  to  him,  pressing 
Mr.  Cardwell's  arm  to  his  side,  Sir  Robert  remarked, 
*  I  never  said  so.' ' 

Mr.  Cockburn  had  had  the  assurance  to  claim  for 
Mr.  Roebuck's  motion  the  support  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  whose  "proconsular  rank"  he  not  ungraciously 
acknowledged.2  Sir  Robert  brushed  him  aside  in  peers 
a  few  perfunctory  sentences,  and  then,  amid  the 
profound  silence  of  a  crowded  House,  delivered 
his  last  message  to  the  assembly  of  which  he 
had  so  long  been  the  most  illustrious  ornament. 
It  is  difficult  in  reading  what  Mr.  Bright  after- 
wards called  "that  most  beautiful,  that  most 
solemn  speech,"  to  realise  that  the  speaker  had 
no  premonition  of  his  approaching  end.  For  Sir 
Robert  had  never  in  his  life  delivered  an  address 
so  fitting  to  be  remembered  in  after  ages  by  a 
civilised  and  Christian  nation.  From  anything 
like  an  attack  upon  Lord  Palmerston  he  most 
carefully  abstained.  But  he  laid  down  principles 
of  foreign  policy  at  direct  variance  with  his,  and 

1  Vol.  iii.  p.  534. 

2  Mr.  Cockburn' s  slashing  and  dashing  speech  had  a  personal  and 
an  almost  immediate  result.     When  it  was  made  the  Great  Seal  was  in 
Commission,  Lord  Cottenham  having  resigned  at  the  end  of  May,  and 
been  consoled,  much  to  Brougham's  disgust,  with  an  earldom.     In 
July  the  Commission  was  terminated  in  favour  of  Sir  Thomas  Wilde, 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas,  who  took  his  seat  on  the  Woolsack 
as  Lord  Truro.     Sir  John  Jervis,  the  Attorney-General,  succeeded  him  ; 
his  place  was  taken  by  Sir  John  Romilly,  Solicitor-General,  and  the 
new  Solicitor-General  was  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn.     Sic  itur  ad  astro. 

VOL.   I  N 


178   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860,  enforced   them   with   all   the   weight   of  his  own 
Hi»  singular  authority.     "  Diplomacy,"  he  said,  "  is  a 

memorable  O  «  ,J^.  J 

.  costly  engine  for  maintaining  peace,  a  remarkable 
instrument  used  by  civilised  nations  for  the  purpose 
of  preventing  war.  Unless  it  be  used  to  appease 
the  angry  passions  of  individual  men,  and  check 
the  feelings  which  arise  out  of  national  resentment, 
it  is  an  instrument  not  only  costly  but  mischievous. 
If  your  application  be  to  fester  every  wound,  to 
provoke  instead  of  soothing  resentments,  to  place 
a  minister  in  every  Court  of  Europe  for  the  purpose 
not  of  preventing  quarrels,  or  of  adjusting  quarrels, 
but  for  the  purpose  of  continuing  an  angry  corre- 
spondence, and  promoting  what  is  supposed  to  be 
an  English  interest  by  keeping  up  conflicts  with 
the  representatives  of  other  Powers,  then  I  say 
that  not  only  is  the  expenditure  upon  this  costly 
instrument  thrown  away,  but  the  great  engine 
used  by  civilised  society  for  the  purpose  of  main- 
taining peace  is  perverted  into  a  cause  of  hostility 
and  war."  After  Peel's  speech  the  chief  interest 
of  the  debate  was  over.  Lord  John  Russell 
followed  him  with  a  plucky  and  spirited  defence 
of  his  colleague,  in  which  he  appealed  to  English 
sentiment,  and  did  his  best  to  represent  Lord 
Palmerston  as  the  victim  of  foreign  intrigue. 
But  in  this  theory  he  had  no  belief  whatever, 
and  the  Minister  whom  he  was  defending  was  a 
Minister  of  whom  he  would  have  been  only  too 
glad  to  get  rid.  His  most  effective  point  was 
the  contrast  which  he  drew  between  Lord  Stanley's 
activity  in  the  Lords  and  Mr.  Disraeli's  inaction 
in  the  House  where  the  Foreign  Secretary  sat. 
This  brought  up  Mr.  Disraeli,  who  laboured  with 
indifferent  success  to  show  that  he  and  Lord 
Stanley  were  entirely  at  one.  At  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning  the  House  divided,  and  the  Govern- 
ment had  a  majority  of  46.  Palmerston's  triumph 


LORD  PALMERSTON'S  TRIUMPH     179 

was  complete.  He  had  given  the  House  of  Lords  1850. 
a  Roland  for  their  Oliver.  He  was  the  most  ^^ 
popular  man  in  the  country.  The  West  Riding Miniatei 
was  restive  at  the  speech  of  Mr.  Cobden,  and 
Manchester  at  the  vote  of  Mr.  Bright.  Mr. 
Villiers,  the  Member  for  Wolverhampton,  and 
Mr.  Fox,  the  Member  for  Oldham,  voted  for  the 
Government.  A  complimentary  dinner  was  given 
to  Palmerston  at  the  Reform  Club.  He  defied  the 
Peelites,  the  Tories,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Court. 

A  few  days  after  the  division  in  the  House  of  The 
Commons  there  was  ratified  at  Washington  the  BuYwer" 
treaty  which  he  had  negotiated  through  Sir  Henry 
Bulwer  with  the  United   States  to  provide  that 
any  canal  made  between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific 
Oceans  across  Central  America  should  be  for  the 
joint  benefit  and  under  the  joint  superintendence 
of  the  two  Powers.     The  date  of  ratification  was 
the  most  important  in  the  American  calendar,  the 
4th  of  July. 

On  the  morrow  of  his  victory  Palmerston's  The  death 
greatest  adversary  was  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  oi 
removed.  The  day  after  his  great  speech  Sir  Robert 
Peel  was  thrown  from  his  horse  on  Constitution 
Hill,  and  on  the  2nd  of  July  he  died.  No  words 
can  express  the  awe,  astonishment,  and  grief  which 
the  news  first  of  his  dangerous  accident,  and  then 
of  his  death,  excited  among  his  countrymen.  He 
was  only  sixty-two,  in  perfect  health,  with  all  his 
faculties  unimpaired,  at  the  height  of  his  authority 
and  his  fame.  "To  Sir  Robert  Peel,"  says  Mr. 
Parker,1  "it  was  a  great  relief  that  the  vote  he 
had  felt  himself  bound  to  give  had  not  displaced 
[the  Government].  Freed  from  anxiety  on  this 
point,  content  with  the  result,  at  ease  in  his  own 
mind,  as  he  walked  home  in  the  fresh  summer 
dawn,  he  is  said  to  have  expressed  satisfaction 

1  Peel  Papers,  vol.  iii.  p.  344. 


180   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860,  that  he  had  spoken  in  the  interests  of  peace."  It 
was  not  that  he  had  any  doubt  of  the  evil  effects 
which  in  his  opinion  Lord  Palmerston's  policy  was 
bound  to  produce.  But  he  had  discharged  his 
conscience,  and  he  was  relieved  from  the  odious 
alternative  of  taking  office  himself,  or  seeing  it 
taken  by  the  Protectionists.  The  dispute  with 
France  had  been  amicably  settled,  and  diplomatic 
relations  had  been  renewed  with  Spain  through 
that  born  statesman  the  first  King  of  the  Belgians 
The  greater  part  of  Peel's  career  falls  outside  the 
scope  of  this  work.  The  last  four  years  of  his  life, 
with  which  alone  it  deals,  were  spent  in  a  wholly 
disinterested  devotion  to  the  cause  of  his  country 
and  the  welfare  of  mankind.  Like  Cobden,  he 
was  not  only  a  true  patriot,  but  an  international 
man.  He  was  mourned  far  beyond  the  limits  of 
his  native  land.  The  Emperor  of  Russia  wrote 
a  letter  of  condolence  to  Lady  Peel,  in  which  he 
said  that  never  had  society  more  need  of  such  men 
for  its  salvation.  The  National  Assembly  of  the 
French  Republic  unanimously  recorded  their  sense 
of  the  loss  suffered  by  Europe.  The  friends  of 
peace  had  indeed  good  reason  to  be  sad.  Their 
master  was  taken  from  their  head.  Peel  never 
hesitated  to  uphold  the  dignity  and  the  honour 
of  England.  His  official  life  began  during  the 
great  war  against  Napoleon.  But  he  knew  enough 
of  war  to  appreciate  its  horrors ;  he  had  been  bred 
under  the  most  pacific  of  all  great  captains,  and 
his  sudden  withdrawal  from  the  scene  was  the  loss 
of  a  moderating  influence  which  had  often  soothed 
the  animosities  of  rival  States.  The  people  of 
England  mourned  for  Peel  as  they  had  mourned 
for  no  man  since  the  death  of  Nelson.  All 
animosities  were  extinguished  in  gratitude  and 
sorrow.  The  giver  of  freedom  and  plenty  was  no 
more. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COLONIES 

FEW  things  are  more  remarkable  in  the  history  1850. 
of  the  British  race  than  the  rise  and  progress  of 
the  Colonial  system.  From  the  least  promising 
of  all  possible  origins  the  penal  settlements  of 
Australia  have  grown  into  wealthy  and  flourishing 
States,  united  in  a  voluntary  Federation  under  an 
imperial  statute  for  the  purposes  of  mutual  inter- 
course and  common  defence.  Except  India,  they 
are  the  most  striking  illustration  of  British  power, 
as  they  are  the  most  successful  instance  of  British 
enterprise.  Unlike  Canada,  which  was  conquered, 
and  South  Africa,  which  was  bought,  Australia 
was  deliberately  peopled  with  white  immigrants, 
before  whom  the  aborigines  disappeared.  Australia, 
indeed,  as  has  been  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Lucas  in 
his  Historical  Geography  of  the  Colonies,  was  a  sort 
of  compensation  for  the  loss  of  the  United  States. 
Five  years  after  American  independence  had  been 
recognised  by  the  Government  of  Lord  Rocking- 
ham  in  1783,  the  first  shipload  of  convicts  was 
despatched  to  Botany  Bay.  Voluntary  settlers 
followed,  and  in  fifty  years  there  was  in  New  South 
Wales,  the  parent  colony,  a  free  white  population 
fit  for  the  exercise  of  political  rights.  In  1842  New 
South  Wales  received  a  Legislative  Council,  and 
South  Australia  was  promised  one.  A  few  years 
later,  when  Australia  had  further  extended  her  in- 

181 


182   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860,  habited  area,  and  transportation,  except  to  the  west 
of  the  Continent,  had  practically  ceased,  Port  Philip 
desired  to  be  separated  from  New  South  Wales, 
and  to  become  the  independent  colony  of  Victoria, 
so  that  in  1850  the  Government  of  Lord  John 
Russell  found  it  necessary  to  introduce  an  enabling 
or  constitutional  Bill.  The  pioneer  of  Colonial  self- 
government,  Sir  William  Molesworth,  had  earned 
the  gratitude  of  the  Colonies  and  of  the  mother 
country  by  persistently  urging  the  need  for  re- 
presentative institutions,  and  the  costly  folly  of 
paternal  government  from  home. 

The  alleged  neglect  of  the  Colonies  is  not  borne 
out  by  facts.  Successive  Secretaries  of  State  in- 
terfered with  them  only  too  much,  and  the  popular 
idea  that  "  Mr.  Mother  Country  Stephen "  was 
himself  the  Colonial  Office  is  a  picturesque  ex- 
aggeration. Sir  James  Stephen  was  a  man  of 
commanding  ability,  with  an  unusual  gift  for  what 
is  called  talking  people  over.  But  Lord  Stanley 
was  never  disposed  to  surrender  any  authority  he 
possessed,  and  the  year  after  Lord  Grey's  appoint- 
ment Stephen  resigned.  "To  govern  our  forty- 
three  Colonies,"  said  Molesworth  in  the  House 
of  Commons  on  the  25th  of  June  1847,  "  scattered 
over  the  face  of  the  globe,  inhabited  by  men 
differing  in  race,  language,  and  religion,  with 
various  institutions,  strange  laws,  and  unknown 
customs,  the  staff  of  the  Colonial  Office  consists 
only  of  five  superior  and  twenty -three  inferior 
functionaries,  making  in  all  twenty-eight  persons 
for  the  government  of  forty -three  colonies."  The 
Colonial  Office  had  of  course  nothing  to  do  with 
India,  which  was  partly  under  the  East  India 
Company  and  partly  under  the  Board  of  Control, 
while  Canada  after  1838  governed  herself.  That 
Australia  and  Ceylon  should  be  subject  to  the 
same  Department  was  incongruous  enough,  and 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COLONIES  183 

Moles  worth's  strictures,  so  far  as  they  go,  are  isso 
just.  But  no  addition  to  the  number  of  clerks  in 
Downing  Street  would  have  solved  the  problem. 
There  was  only  one  solution,  Molesworth's  own, 
and  that  was  to  give  the  Colonies  where  the  white 
races  predominated  the  privilege  with  the  responsi- 
bility of  self-government.  It  was  indeed  a  strange 
anomaly,  which  Molesworth  did  not  fail  to  point 
out,  that  while  an  Englishman  who  emigrated 
to  the  United  States  enjoyed  the  same  civil  rights 
as  if  he  remained  at  home,  with  a  much  wider 
franchise,  an  Englishman  who  went  to  Australia 
had  no  voice  in  the  administration  of  the  country, 
and  was  forced  to  associate  with  the  criminal 
classes  of  the  United  Kingdom.1  No  wonder  that 
the  Colonies  were  in  a  condition  of  unrest,  and 
threatened  rebellion.  No  wonder  that  politicians 
who  did  not  see  the  true  way  out  of  the  difficulty 
should  ask  themselves  in  despair  whether  it  was 
not  better  to  let  the  Colonies  go.  But  the  Colonies 
did  not  want  to  go,  and  to  abandon  them  would 
have  been  a  contemptible  abnegation  of  moral 
duty.  If  anything  could  have  driven  Australia 
to  cut  the  painter  it  would  have  been  Lord  Grey's 
perverse  behaviour  in  thrusting  convicts  upon  Van 
Diemen's  Land  in  1848,  after  the  Governor,  Sir 
William  Denison,  had  announced  that  the  odious 
practice  would  be  discontinued.  Lord  Grey  drew 
a  distinction  between  convicts  sentenced  to  im- 
mediate transportation  and  "  ticket-of-leave  men  " 
who  had  undergone  part  of  their  punishment  in 
an  English  prison.  But  this  sophistry  only  in- 
creased the  indignation  of  the  colonists,  who  re- 
fused to  be  satisfied,  except  in  Western  Australia, 
where  labour  was  the  one  thing  needful,  until  the 
accursed  system  had  been  abolished  altogether. 
The  obstinacy  with  which  they  clung  to  trans- 

1  Mrs.  Fawcett's  Life  of  Molesworth,  p.  279. 


184   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

isso.  portation  is  a  serious  blot  on  the  Colonial  policy 
of  the  Whigs,  which  was  otherwise  for  the  most 
part  wise  and  sound. 

The  growth  and  success  of  our  Colonies  owe 
much  to  the  social  and  commercial  enfranchise- 
ment with  which  the  successive  names  of  Whig 
and  Liberal  are  associated.  The  Whigs  saved 
Canada  in  1838.  They  would  have  saved  the 
whole  of  North  America  sixty  years  before  if  their 
power  had  been  equal  to  their  will.  Australia 
owes  much  also  to  the  need  for  expansion,  and  to 
the  distress  in  England,  from  which  flowed  a 
stream  of  emigrants  in  the  years  immediately  suc- 
ceeding 1842.  In  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  Colonial  Office,  and  especially  the 
Secretary  of  State,  were  constantly  subject  not 
only  to  severe  criticism,  but  to  violent  abuse. 

Lom  Grey.  Lord  Grey  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  make 
an  unpopular  arrangement  palatable.  He  had  all 
his  father's  haughtiness,  with  none  of  his  father's 
suavity  ;  but  he  was  a  most  capable  administrator, 
and  he  never  lacked  the  courage  required  for 
carrying  his  principles  into  effect.  As  a  Whig, 
and  in  those  days  something  more,  he  was  a  firm 
believer  in  self-government,  and  sincerely  con- 
vinced, unlike  Lord  Brougham,  that  it  was  the 
best  way  of  attaching  the  Colonies  to  the  mother 
country.  He  repudiated  with  characteristic  vehem- 
ence the  idea  of  governing  them  from  Downing 
Street.  To  give  them  the  management  of  their 
own  affairs  was  his  object,  and  he  succeeded  in 
obtaining  the  support  of  the  Cabinet.  So  im- 
portant was  the  matter  deemed  to  be  that  the 
Premier  himself  took  charge  of  it  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  introduced,  on  the  8th  of  February, 

pe          a   Bill   for   conferring   constitutional   government 

Australian  *•••%»»•  •     •  i 

uPon  Australia.     Public  opinion  was  uneasy  about 
the  Colonies.     The  fallacy  that  trade  followed  the 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COLONIES  185 

flag  had  been  long  since  exploded,  and  it  was  seen  i860. 
that  the  Colonies  cost  a  great  deal  of  money. 
There  was  a  tendency  among  practical  persons 
with  material  views  to  regard  our  Colonial 
possessions  as  a  burden,  and  to  think  that  the 
sooner  we  got  rid  of  them  the  better.  Lord 
John  Russell,  like  Sir  Robert  Peel,  repudiated 
this  notion  altogether.  The  only  public  men 
of  note  who  held  it  were  Cobden,  Bright,  and 
Disraeli.  Yet  it  is  the  policy  of  Bright  and  Cob- 
den,  the  policy  of  absolute  non-intervention  in 
Colonial  affairs,  which  has  made  the  Colonies  not 
less  enthusiastically  loyal  to  the  Crown  than 
attached  to  their  own  virtual  independence.  Our 
bounden  duty,  said  Lord  John  Russell,  was  to 
maintain  the  Colonial  territories  of  the  Sovereign 
as  an  integral  part  of  her  dominions,  and  for  that 
purpose  they  must  receive,  wherever  it  was  possible, 
a  full  measure  of  constitutional  freedom.  For 
Australia  legislation  was  required,  because  it  was 
intended  to  provide  for  contingencies,  such  as  the 
revision  of  Colonial  constitutions,  with  which  the 
Queen's  prerogative  could  not  adequately  cope. 
New  South  Wales  had  already  a  Legislative 
Council,  which  strongly  objected  to  transporta- 
tion. A  similar  Council  was  to  be  set  up  in  Port 
Philip,  now  called  Victoria,  in  Van  Diemen's  Land, 
now  called  Tasmania,  and  in  South  Australia. 
Two-thirds  of  the  Councillors  in  each  colony  were 
to  be  elected,  and  the  remaining  third  were  to  be 
nominated  by  the  Governor.  For  settling  a  general 
tariff,  for  dealing  with  waste  lands,  and  for  other  Tj"L  eerm 

.     .    to  ,  ,.         ofFedera- 

purposes,  a  joint  Assembly  of  all  the  Australian  Men- 
Colonies  might  be  summoned.  The  fate  of  this 
most  valuable  provision  will  be  seen  hereafter.  So 
far,  Lord  John  Russell's  proposals  were  reasonable 
and  enlightened.  When  he  came  to  speak  of 
transportation,  there  was  a  sad  falling  off.  This 


186   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1850.  method  of  peopling  Australasia  and  South  Africa 
uonnsporta"  with  the  worst  and  most  hardened  members  of  the 
criminal  population  at  home  had  already,  as  we 
have  seen,  given  serious  trouble.  The  Cape  of 
Good  Hope  had  rebelled  against  it,  and  so  had 
New  South  Wales.  Lord  John  had  to  admit  that 
convicts  could  not  be  forced  upon  British  com- 
munities against  their  will,  and  that  the  Neptune, 
which  the  Cape  Colonists  would  not  allow  to  land 
her  cargo,  had  been  sent  to  Van  Diemen's  Land. 
But  he  went  on  to  argue  that  the  question  was 
one  rather  for  the  Home  than  for  the  Colonial 
Secretary,  that  something  must  be  done  with 
convicts,  and  that  they  could  not  be  kept  in 
England.  For  this  last  most  arbitrary  statement 
he  cited  the  authority  of  the  Judges,  compared 
with  whom  the  Bishops  were  radical  reformers. 
Not  much  was  said  on  the  first  reading  of  the 
Bill,  except  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  argued  strongly 
Theprin-  in  favour  of  a  second  Chamber  in  each  colony. 
second a  Mr.  Gladstone's  arguments  are  not  difficult  to 

Chamber.  ,      .  ,    c        ,  , 

answer,  and  in  the  abstract  they  are  not  very 
strong.  It  savours  of  pedantry  to  insist  upon  the 
immediate  creation  in  a  new  community  of  elabo- 
rate mechanism  upon  which  the  experience  of 
centuries  has  here  set  its  seal.  But  Mr.  Gladstone 
has  been  justified  by  events,  for  there  is  not  at 
this  moment  a  British  colony  without  a  second 
Chamber. 

Feb.  is.  The   Bill  was   read   a   second  time  without  a 

division,  and  the  Prime  Minister  conciliated  the 
advocates  of  two  Houses  by  pointing  out  that 
the  Colonies  would  be  able  to  adopt  that  system 
for  themselves  if  they  preferred  it.  This  reduced 
the  controversy  to  an  academic  level.  To  the 
arguments  on  both  sides  there  was  the  plain, 
practical  answer  that  if  those  who  were  most  con- 
cerned approved  of  them,  they  would  prevail.  Sir 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COLONIES  187 

William  Molesworth  went  further,  and  proposed  isso. 
a  complete  scheme  of  Colonial  independence,  with 
two  Chambers,  both  elective.  He  was  not  merely  sir 
for  letting  each  colony  frame  its  own  constitution,  worth's 
He  protested  against  the  right  of  the  Governor  to  Tl 
reserve  Bills  for  the  consideration  of  the  Secretary 
of  State.  In  short,  he  would  have  united  them 
to  the  mother  country  by  nothing  except  the 
golden  link  of  the  Crown,  and  would  have  re- 
stricted the  power  of  the  Sovereign  to  the  ap- 
pointment of  Governors.  It  may  be  said  that  Sir 
William  Molesworth  was  in  advance  of  his  time, 
for  that  is  substantially  the  law  now.  But,  on  the 
principle  that  a  Colonial  Legislature  may  pass  a 
measure  which  affects  the  general  interests  of  the 
Empire,  the  veto  has  always  been  retained,  though 
it  has  fallen  into  almost  entire  disuse.  On  the 
13th  of  May,  when  the  Bill  was  read  a  third  time, 
Mr.  Gladstone  moved  to  suspend  it  until  the 
Colonies  had  been  consulted.  There  was  a  great 
deal  to  be  said  for  this  motion,  though  it  was  de- 
feated by  a  large  majority.  But  the  Government 
insisted  that  the  Colonies  desired  the  Bill,  that 
they  had  expected  it  the  year  before,  and  that 
delay,  if  not  positively  dangerous,  would  be  most 
unpopular.  Lord  John  seldom  showed  more  lord  John's 

.  Colonial 

energy,  or  more  dexterity,  than  m  the  conduct  statesman- 
of  this  Bill,  and  he  deserves  to  be  remembered 
with  gratitude  by  all  who  value  the  Colonial  part 
of  the  British  Empire.  The  most  strenuous  oppo- 
nent of  the  Bill  in  the  House  of  Lords  was  the 
Bishop  of  Oxford,  who  tried  to  defeat  it  for  the 
year  by  referring  it  to  a  Select  Committee.  The 
Bishop's  speech,  eloquent  as  usual,  was  marked 
by  bitter  animosity  against  the  Government,  especi- 
ally against  Lord  Grey.1  Taking  up  a  point,  and 

1  It  appears  from  the  private  correspondence  published  by  his  son 
that  he  conceived  himself  to  have  lost  the  Archbishopric  of  Canterbury 


188   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1850.  a  very  bad  point,  made  by  Mr.  Gladstone  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  he  urged  that  the  Church  of 

The  church  England  required  special  safeguards  in  the  Colonies. 

colonies.  The  Church  of  England  in  a  self-governing  colony 
occupies  precisely  the  same  position  as  all  other 
religious  bodies,  and  has  no  grievance.  Lord  Grey 
replied  with  adequate  acerbity  to  this  episcopal 
onslaught,  and  recommended  the  right  reverend 
prelate,  if  he  must  speak  on  Colonial  subjects,  to 
make  himself  acquainted  with  them  before  he  did 
so.  Since  Bishops  are  Peers  of  Parliament,  their 
right  to  take  part  in  political  debates  cannot  be 
disputed,  and  Bishop  Wilberforce  was  better 
qualified  than  most  of  his  episcopal  brethren  to 
take  part  in  them  with  effect.  The  amount  of 
interest  which  the  House  of  Lords  then  felt  in 
Colonial  affairs  may  be  estimated  by  the  fact  that 
only  24  Peers  voted  with  the  Bishop,  and  only  37 
against  him.  The  Government,  therefore,  had  a 
majority  of  13.  In  Committee  they  were  much 
more  closely  pressed,  and  were  as  nearly  as  possible 

thees£der!  defeated.     Lord  Stanley  moved  to  strike  out  the 

won  clause,  clause  which  authorised  the  convention  of  a  Federal 
Assembly,  and  in  a  House  of  forty -five  Peers 
he  was  only  beaten  by  one  vote.  The  clause 
was  subsequently  dropped,  and  the  Bill  passed 
without  it  Thus  the  germ  of  Australian  Federa- 
tion was  sterilised  by  the  Conservative  party. 
Colonists  were  then  regarded  as  dangerous  and 
revolutionary  Radicals,  who  had  to  be  kept  in 
their  places.  Lord  Stanley,  who  had  been  Colonial 
Secretary  himself,  and  had  as  such  carried  the 
Bill  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  conceived  that  a 
union  of  colonies  for  legislative  purposes  would 
usurp  the  functions  of  Parliament.  Lord  Grey,  in 

by  protesting  against  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Hampden,  and  he  never 
lost  an  opportunity  of  attacking  Lord  John  Russell's  Administration. — 
Life  of  Bishop  Wilberforce,  vol.  i.  pp.  496-497. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COLONIES  189 

reply,  cited  the  American  constitution,  with  its  1350. 
Federal  Congress  and  its  State  rights,  its  common 
postage,  and  its  free  trade  within  the  Union.  The 
analogy  is  by  no  means  perfect,  for  the  proper 
parallel  to  Washington  is  not  Sydney,  but  Lon- 
don, and  in  those  days  no  one  dreamed  of  Im- 
perial Federation.  The  strongest  reason  in  favour 
of  the  proposal  was  the  importance  to  Australia  of 
a  customs  union.  The  strongest  reason  against  it 
was  that  the  Australians  did  not  appear  to  desire 
it  themselves.  But  the  Government,  though  they 
placed  their  Bill  on  the  Statute  Book  before  the 
end  of  the  year,  cannot  be  acquitted  of  weakness. 
Having  proposed  the  clause,  they  should  have 
stuck  to  it,  and  not  have  shifted  their  responsi- 
bilities to  the  shoulders  of  the  Opposition.  Yet 
few  legislative  measures  have  proved  so  important 
as  this  to  the  power,  influence,  and  welfare  of  the 
British  race.  Ceylon,  where  self-government  was  Lord  Tor. 
impossible,1  continued  to  give  trouble.  On  therecaiLnB 
26th  of  July  the  Committee  appointed  by  the 
House  of  Commons  reported  that  Lord  Torrington 
had  been  guilty  of  excesses,  and  recommended  a 
Royal  Commission.  No  Royal  Commission  was 
issued,  but  Lord  Torrington  was  soon  afterwards 
recalled.  Colonial  Governorships  were  too  often 
in  those  days  not  so  much  the  reward  of  merit  as 
the  solace  of  impecuniosity. 

1  Because  the  natives  were  unfit  for  it,  and  to  place  them  under  a 
small  white  minority  would  have  been  unjust. 


CHAPTER  XII 

ENGLAND  AND  THE  CHURCH  OF  ROME 

1850.  THE  year  1850  was  a  momentous  one  for  the 
Church  of  England.  It  began  with  the  Gorham 

cathoii.  case,  and  it  ended  with  the  Papal  Aggression. 
The  history  of  politics  cannot  be  understood  with- 
out the  history  of  religion,  and  he  forms  a  shallow 
estimate  of  human  affairs  who  regards  ecclesiastical 
disputes  as  unworthy  of  rational  notice.  The 

J£eGorhani  aPPea-l  °f  the  Reverend  George  Gorham  was  the 
first  ecclesiastical  cause  or  matter  which  came  before 
the  Judicial  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council. 
Lord  Brougham,  the  author  of  the  statute  which 
created  the  Committee,  declared  that  it  had  not 
been  intended  to  give  the  new  Court  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  sub- 
stituted for  the  old  Court  of  Delegates,  to  which 
had  been  transferred  the  power  of  the  Pope  in  the 
time  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  and  the  Delegates,  who 
were  Privy  Councillors,  heard  spiritual  appeals. 
Mr.  Gorham  had  been  presented  so  far  back  as 
August  1847  to  the  living  of  Brampford  Speke 
in  the  diocese  of  Exeter  by  Lord  Chancellor 
Cottenham.  He  belonged  to  the  evangelical 
school  of  theology,  whereas  the  Bishop  of  Exeter, 
Dr.  Philpotts,  was  a  pronounced  and  aggressive 
High  Churchman.  Suspecting  Mr.  Gorham  of 
"  unsoundness,"  he  put  to  him  a  number  of  ques- 
tions, chiefly  on  the  subject  of  infant  baptism.  It 

190 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  191 

is  extremely  doubtful  whether  the  Bishop  had  the  1850. 
right  to  ask  Mr.  Gorham  any  questions  at  all. 
Mr.  Gorham  was  not  a  candidate  for  ordination. 
He  was  a  clergyman  in  priest's  orders,  duly  pre- 
sented to  an  ecclesiastical  benefice  by  its  legal 
patron,  and  the  Bishop  was  therefore  bound  to 
institute  him  unless  he  could  prove  affirmatively 
that  Mr.  Gorham  was  either  a  heretic  or  an  evil 
liver.  Mr.  Gorham,  however,  chose  to  answer  the 
interrogatories,  and  his  replies  could  of  course 
be  used  as  evidence  against  him.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  they  were  somewhat  obscure  and 
evasive,  wanting  in  straightforwardness,  or  at 
least  in  simplicity.  They  did  not  satisfy  the 
Bishop,  who  refused  to  institute  him.  Gorham 
appealed  to  the  Dean  of  the  Arches,  Sir  Herbert 
.Tenner  -  Fust,  who  decided  in  favour  of  the 
Bishop,  holding  that  Gorham  did  not  believe 
the  doctrine  of  baptismal  regeneration  as  defined 
in  the  formularies  of  the  Church  of  England. 
Gorham  then  appealed  to  the  Judicial  Com- 
mittee, before  whom  the  case  was  argued  by 
Turner1  for  the  appellant,  and  Baddeley  for  the 
respondent,  in  December  1849.  The  Bishop 
of  Exeter  acknowledged  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Court,  which  he  afterwards  denied,  when  he  in- 
structed counsel  to  represent  him.  On  the  8th 
of  March  the  judgment  of  the  Committee  was 
read  by  Lord  Langdale,  Master  of  the  Rolls.2  The 
judgment  of  the  Court  below  was  reversed,  and 
the  Bishop  of  Exeter  was  ordered  to  institute 
Mr.  Gorham.  This  order  he  refused  to  obey,  and 
Gorham  was  finally  instituted  by  the  Dean  of  the 
Arches,  acting  for  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

1  Afterwards    Sir    George    Turner,   Lord   Justice    of   Appeal    in 
Chancery. 

2  An  account  of  the  Gorham  case,  containing  a  full  report  of  Lord 
Langdale' s  judgment,  was  published  in  1852  by  Messrs.   Stevens  and 
Morton. 


192   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1850.  Lord  Langdale's  judgment  was  described  by  the 
great  historian  of  the  age,  who  heard  it  delivered, 
as  worthy  of  Somers  or  D'Aguesseau.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly a  calm,  lucid,  and  impartial  document, 
honourable  to  the  tribunal  from  which  it  pro- 
ceeded. The  members  of  the  Court,  besides  the 
Master  of  the  Rolls,  were  Lord  Campbell,  Dr. 
Lushington,  Baron  Parke,  Mr.  Pemberton  Leigh,1 
and  Vice-Chancellor  Knight-Bruce,  who  dissented 
from  the  rest  of  the  Court.  The  Archbishops, 
Sumner  and  Musgrave,  with  the  Bishop  of  London, 
Blomfield,  attended  to  give  their  advice  as  Privy 
Councillors,  but  were  not  allowed  to  vote.  The 
Archbishops  agreed  with  the  judgment.  The 
Bishop  of  London  did  not. 

^  ^s  difficult,  though  it  is  necessary,  to  under- 
stand  the  storm  which  this  decision  raised.  The 
judgment  itself  deserves  to  be  read  as  a  model  of 
the  grave  and  temperate  manner  in  which  Judges 
should  deal  with  theological  questions.  Their 
Lordships  did  not  pretend  to  decide  upon  the  truth 
or  falsehood  of  any  dogma.  They  did  not  say  that 
Mr.  Gorham  was  right,  or  that  the  Bishop  of 
Exeter  was  wrong,  in  their  respective  views  of 
baptismal  regeneration.  They  simply  held  that 
on  the  evidence  before  them  Gorham  was  not 
proved  to  have  expressed  any  opinion  at  variance 
with  the  formularies  of  the  Established  Church. 
So  much  appears  from  their  published  reasons. 
But  Mr.  Greville,  who  was  Clerk  of  the  Council, 
and  as  such  present  at  the  private  consideration 
of  the  judgment,  is  an  authoritative  witness  to 
The  judges  what  passed  behind  the  scenes.  Dr.  Lushington, 

mconsulta-          i        r      j         •     -T  <<        •  j       i  i       i       .1 

won.  a  learned  civilian,  "said  he  had  the  greatest 
difficulty  in  making  out  what  Gorham's  doctrine 
really  was,  and  he  was  much  struck  with  the  fact 
that  in  no  part  of  the  Bishop's  pleadings  did  he  say 

1  Afterwards  Lord  Kingsdown. 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  193 

explicitly  with  what  he  charged  him." l  He  also  isso 
"  pronounced  a  strong  opinion  against  the  Bishop, 
commenting  in  severe  terms  upon  the  nature  of 
the  examination,  and  setting  forth  the  great  danger 
to  the  peace  of  the  Church  which  would  result 
from  a  judicial  declaration  on  their  part  that 
Gorham's  opinions  were  clearly  proved  to  be 
heretical."  Still  more  to  the  point  was  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  "who  showed  that  opinions, 
if  not  identical  with,  yet  very  like,  those  of  Gor- 
ham,  had  been  held  by  a  host  of  great  and  good 
churchmen,"  from  Bishop  Jewell  to  Mr.  Simeon. 
The  issue  was  really  between  two  parties  in  the 
Church,  the  High  and  the  Low.  The  High 
Church  party  did  not  succeed  in  driving  a  typical 
Low  Churchman  out  of  the  pale.  But  no  censure 
was  passed  upon  their  own  doctrines  and  practices. 
To  Mr.  Gorham,  as  to  Dr.  Pusey,  baptism  was  in 
the  beautiful  language  of  the  Prayer  Book  "an 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual 
grace."  About  the  nature  of  that  grace,  and  the 
mode  of  its  reception,  they  differed,  and  the 
Judicial  Committee  considered  that  on  so  mysteri- 
ous a  subject  their  difference  was  legitimate. 
Bishop  Wilberforce  thought  the  judgment  "vile." 
Lord  Ashley,  who  was  quite  as  orthodox  as 
any  Bishop  on  the  Bench,  thought  it  righteous 
and  beneficent.  It  led,  however,  to  some  seces- 
sions from  the  Church  of  England,  and  to  a  shower 
of  controversial  pamphlets.  Henry  Edward  Man-  S 
ning,  Archdeacon  of  Chichester  ;  Aubrey  de  Vere, 
the  poet ;  James  Hope-Scott,  the  Parliamentary 
lawyer,  and  several  others,  joined  the  Church  of 
Rome  as  a  refuge  against  the  abomination  of 
Erastianism.  Many  of  the  Bishops  signed  a  pro- 
test against  a  decision  stamped  with  the  approval 
of  the  Archbishops,  to  one  or  other  of  whom  they 

1  "  Greville  Memoirs,"  16th  January  1850. 
VOL.  I  O 


194   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

isso.  all  owed  canonical  obedience.  The  Bishop  of 
Exeter  brought  upon  himself  much  ridicule  by 
affecting  to  excommunicate  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  a  bright  example  of  two  Christian 
virtues,  meekness  and  humility,  in  which  Dr. 

A  protest.  Philpotts  did  not  shine.  Some  influential  laymen, 
including  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert, 
were  gravely  perturbed,  and  talked  of  signing  a 
declaration.  Such  a  document  was  signed  by  all 
the  seceders  before  their  secession,  and  by  some 
who  did  not  secede.  Mr.  Herbert  and  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, however,  remembering  that  they  were  Privy 
Councillors,  drew  back  and  withheld  their  names. 

Further  A  more  practical  step  was  taken  by  attempting 
to  obtain  from  each  of  the  Superior  Courts  at 
Westminster  in  turn  a  writ  of  prohibition,  which 
must  virtually,  though  not  nominally,  if  it  had 
issued,  have  been  addressed  to  the  Queen  in 
Council.  For  the  Dean  of  the  Arches  had  lost 
control  of  the  proceedings,  even  if  he  possessed 
any  authority  independent  of  the  Archbishop, 
whose  officer  he  was.  During  the  interval  which 
elapsed  between  the  arguments  and  the  decision 
at  Whitehall  Lord  Denman  resigned,  and  Lord 
Campbell,  who  had  been  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy 
since  the  formation  of  Lord  John  Russell's  Cabinet, 
became  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England.  He  there- 
fore had  to  pronounce  upon  the  validity  of  his  own 
jurisdiction.  Lord  Campbell  was  an  excellent 
lawyer,  and  proved  a  most  efficient  Judge.  But 
it  was  one  of  his  weaknesses  to  regard  himself  as 
omniscient,  and  to  treat  his  own  books  as  historical 
authorities.  Relying  upon  the  entertaining  collec- 
tion of  gossip  which  he  called  his  "Lives  of  the 
Chancellors  "  for  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  he 
gave  the  High  Churchmen  a  laugh  at  his  expense, 
by  confounding  Lord  Audley  with  Sir  Thomas 
More.  But  on  the  main  point,  the  absolute  right 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  195 

of  the  Judicial  Committee  to  determine  ecclesi-  isso. 
astical  appeals,  he  was  supported  in  the  affirmative 
by  his  colleagues  in  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench, 
by  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  and  by  the  Court 
of  Exchequer.  Having  failed  in  the  Courts,  the 
High  Churchmen  tried  Parliament,  and  the  Bishop 
of  London1  introduced  a  Bill  for  transferring 
ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  from  the  Privy  Council 
to  the  Upper  House  of  Convocation,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  Bishops.  This  learned  and  able  Prelate 
did  not  always  know  his  own  mind  as  well  as  he 
knew  the  mind  of  ^Eschylus.  Greville  describes 
him  as  "half  assenting  and  half  dissenting,  being 
on  and  off,  by  turns  against  Gorham  and  against 
the  Bishop  [Exeter],  disagreeing  with  everybody 
and  everything." 2  He  made,  however,  a  powerful 
and  impressive  speech  on  behalf  of  his  Bill,  con- 
cluding with  a  solemn  peroration  which  moved 
even  the  House  of  Lords.  But  his  Bill  was 
rejected  by  a  majority  of  33.  It  really  involved 
the  principle  of  disestablishment,  and  Lord 
Lansdowne  had  an  easy  task  in  opposing  it. 
The  Prelates  themselves  were  not  unanimous  and 
the  Bishop  of  St.  David's,3  who  never  forgot 
that  the  Church  of  England  includes  the  laity, 
exposed  the  dangers  of  bishop-made  law.  At  the 
time  of  this  debate  Convocation  had  not  metconvoca, 
for  the  despatch  of  business  since  1717.  It  wastK 
annually  convened,  and  the  clergy  elected  their 
proctors  as  often  as  Parliament  was  dissolved. 
But  it  could  do  nothing  without  the  sanction  of 
the  Crown,  and  that  sanction  was  systematically 
withheld.  The  revival  of  Convocation  was  a 
great  object  with  Bishop  Wilberforce,  and  the 
Gorham  case  redoubled  his  zeal.  Against  a  Whig 
Government,  however,  he  was  powerless,  and  the 

1  Dr.  Blomfield.  2  "  Memoirs,"  9th  March  1850. 

•  Dr.  Thhrlwall. 


196   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1850.  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  was  on  the  Ministerial 

side. 

JJjSSSi  But  the  Gorham  case  was  soon  forgotten  in  the 
convulsion  that  swept  over  England  from  the 
Flaminian  Gate  of  Rome.  The  Papal  Aggression, 
as  it  was  called,  and  its  consequences,  cannot 
be  regarded  by  Englishmen  without  feelings  of 
shame.  From  the  month  of  October  1850  to 
the  month  of  August  1851  there  was  an  almost 
incessant  orgy  of  bigotry  and  intolerance.  For 
the  mass  of  the  nation  there  was  some  excuse. 
The  people  of  England  are  thoroughly  Pro- 
testant, and  they  had  been  most  wantonly  pro- 
voked. The  politicians  who  took  advantage  of 
honest  prejudice  for  their  own  purposes  had  no 
excuse  at  all.  Pope  Pius  the  Ninth,  having  re- 
turned to  Rome,  under  the  protection  of  French 
bayonets,  after  two  years  of  ignominious  exile, 
abandoned  all  pretence  of  Liberalism,  and  appointed 
Cardinal  Antonelli  to  be  his  Secretary  of  State. 
So  far  as  England  was  concerned,  his  principal 
adviser  was  Nicholas  Wiseman,  a  supple  ecclesiastic 
and  accomplished  linguist,  the  central  figure  of 
that  inimitable  satire,  "  Bishop  Blougram's  Apo- 
logy." Dr.  Wiseman  passed  for  a  man  of  the 
world,  but  he  did  not  then  understand  that  portion 
of  the  earth's  surface  with  which  it  was  his  special 
business  to  be  acquainted.  He  was  responsible 
The  Brief  for  the  Papal  Brief  dated  the  30th  September,  and 
Pastoral,  he  was  the  author  of  the  still  more  startling  Pas- 
toral dated  the  7th  of  October  1850.  The  Brief 
referred  to  "  the  Anglican  schism,"  which  was  only 
the  Pope's  polite  way  of  describing  the  Church  of 
England.  Dr.  Wiseman's  Pastoral,  issued  "  out  of 
the  Flaminian  Gate,"  announced  a  new  policy  in 
singularly  audacious  terms.  The  English  Catholics 
had  hitherto  been  governed  by  Bishops,  or  Vicars 
Apostolic,  who  had  no  territorial  sees.  Dr.  Wise- 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  197 

man  himself  was  styled  "  Bishop  of  Melipotamus  1850 
in  partibus  infidelium."  There  was  henceforth  to 
be  a  new  Catholic  Hierarchy,  consisting  of  one 
Archbishop  and  twelve  Bishops,  each  with  a  diocese 
of  his  own.  These  dioceses  were  not  to  be  identical 
with  those  of  the  Established  Church,  for  that 
would  have  been  a  breach  of  the  law.  But  they 
were  to  include  the  whole  of  England.  Wiseman 
himself,  elevated  to  the  rank  of  Cardinal,  was  to 
be  Archbishop  of  Westminster.  In  substance  and 
in  fact  this  arrangement  concerned  Roman  Catholics 
alone.  It  had  no  legal  validity,  and  the  titles 
which  it  affected  to  confer  were  empty  forms.  No 
Protestant  was  affected  by  it.  No  Protestant  had 
anything  to  do  with  it.  Unfortunately  it  was 
announced  in  language  of  a  peculiarly  aggressive 
and  irritating  kind.  "  We  govern,"  wrote  Cardinal 
Wiseman,  "  and  shall  continue  to  govern,  the 
counties  of  Middlesex,  Hertford,  and  Essex."  Of 
course  he  meant  the  Roman  Catholics  of  those 
counties,  but  he  did  not  say  so.  Recent  conver- 
sions to  Rome,  more  conspicuous  than  numerous, 
must  have  turned  the  heads  of  the  Roman  Hierarchy, 
and  not  of  the  Hierarchy  alone.  So  thorough  an 
Englishman  as  Dr.  Newman,  preaching  at  the 
consecration  of  Dr.  Ullathorne,  the  new  "  Bishop  of 
Birmingham,"  declared  that  "  the  people  of  Eng- 
land, who  had  for  so  many  years  been  separated 
from  the  Church  of  Rome,  were  about  of  their 
own  will  to  be  added  to  the  Holy  Church."  One 
must  suppose  that  Newman  meant  something  by 
these  words,  but  what  he  can  have  meant  it  is  hard 
to  say.  At  all  events  these  and  similar  utterances, 
so  far  from  "  adding "  the  English  people  to  the 
Church  of  Rome,  inflamed  them  almost  to  madness 
against  the  Papacy,  and  everything  connected  with 
it.  This  result,  however  deplorable,  was  not  un- 
natural. But  the  tempest  would  have  subsided  as 


198   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860,  quickly  as  it  arose  if  the  leading  men  in  State  and 
Church  had  done  their  duty  by  pouring  oil  upon 

Th^Durham  ^ne  troubled  waters.  The  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury behaved,  as  always,  with  reason  and  modera- 
tion. But  few  of  his  colleagues,  except  Bishop 
Stanley,  father  of  the  more  celebrated  Dean,  fol- 
lowed his  example,  and  the  worst  offender  of  all 

NOV.  t  was  the  Prime  Minister,  whose  letter  to  Dr.  Maltby, 
Bishop  of  Durham,  commonly  called  the  Durham 
letter,  made  things  ten  times  worse  than  they  were 
before.  Lord  John  Russell  had  recently  shown 
courage  and  wisdom  by  appointing  a  Royal  Com- 
mission to  inquire  into  the  Universities  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge,  despite  the  protests  of  Sir  Robert 
Inglis,  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  Mr.  Roundell  Palmer. 
.  But  the  Brief  and  the  Pastoral  upset  his  balance. 
It  was  not  in  his  case,  as  in  the  case  of  others, 
political  calculation,  or  the  love  of  popularity.  He 
was  a  fiery  Protestant  and  a  staunch  Erastian, 
hating  alike  the  dogmas  and  the  pretensions  of 
Rome.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  denounce  the  one 
as  "  the  mummeries  of  superstition,"  and  the  other 
as  "  endeavours  to  confine  the  intellect  and  enslave 
the  soul."  Turning  upon  the  Puseyites,  who  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Pastoral  or  the  Brief,  he 
stigmatised  them  as  "  unworthy  sons  of  the  Church 
of  England."  A  private  individual  might  have 
written  this  letter  without  incurring  any  just 
blame.  The  First  Minister  of  the  Crown  should 
have  remembered  that  millions  of  Roman  Catholics 
were  loyal  subjects  of  the  Queen,  and  that  their 
religion  was  as  much  entitled  to  respect  as  his  own. 
He  soon  repented  his  rashness,  and  found  reason 
to  remember  the  existence  of  a  country  called 
Ireland.  But  at  the  moment  his  success  was  com- 
plete, for  he  had  hit  the  public  between  wind  and 
water.  His  letter  was  dated  the  4th  of  November. 
Next  day  it  was  thought  patriotic  and  appropriate 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  199 

to  burn  the  Pope  and  Cardinal  Wiseman  in  effigy, 
as  though  they  had  been  concerned  in  a  plot  to  blow 
up  the  Houses  of  Parliament.  At  the  Lord  Mayor's 
dinner,  on  the  9th  of  November,  Lord  Chancellor 
Truro  evoked  enthusiastic  applause  by  quoting  from 
Shakespeare — 

Under  my  feet  I'll  stamp  thy  Cardinal's  hat, 
In  spite  of  Pope  or  dignities  of  Church. 

The  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  ad- 
dressed the  Queen  in  the  same  sense.  Wiseman 
felt  that  he  had  gone  too  far,  and  wrote  a  very 
long  epistle  to  the  newspapers  in  his  own  defence. 
He  took  the  obvious  point  that  the  ecclesiastical 
system  of  Roman  Catholics  was  their  own  affair. 
He  craftily  contrasted  the  wealth  and  privileges  of 
the  Established  Church  with  the  poverty  of  the 
Dissenters,  and  their  exclusion  from  the  Universi- 
ties. He  taxed  Lord  John  with  having  been  in-  Lord 
formed  through  Lord  Minto  that  the  steps  now  aiiTged  tore- 
taken  were  in  contemplation.  This  assertion,  of 
which  the  Tories  made  much  use,  Lord  John  and 
Lord  Minto  both  denied.  It  appears  that  both 
statement  and  contradiction  were  made  in  good 
faith.  Some  papers  on  the  subject  had  been  given 
to  Lord  Minto,  but  he  had  not  taken  the  trouble 
to  read  them.  The  incident  did  not  increase  his 
lordship's  reputation,  even  as  an  amateur  diplo- 
matist. 

Lord  John  Russell  had  not  consulted  his  col-  Theecc 
leagues  before  sending  his  letter,  and  some  ff 
them,  especially  the  Whig  Nestor,  Lord  Lans- 
downe,  highly  disapproved  of  it  Lord  Clarendon 
assured  Greville  that  the  harm  it  had  done  in 
Ireland  "was  not  to  be  told."  But  it  could  not 
be  recalled,  and  therefore  it  had  to  be  followed  up. 
The  Law  Officers  of  the  Crown  advised  the  Cabinet 
that  a  prosecution  would  almost  certainly  fail,  and 


200   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

isso.  it  was  therefore  thought  necessary  to  introduce  a 
Bill,  which  was  duly  promised  in  the  Queen's 
Speech.  If  the  promise  had  not  been  given  the 
Government  would  have  been  turned  out.  The 
Queen  on  her  way  to  open  Parliament  was  received 
with  cries  of  "  No  Popery,"  and  Cardinal  Wiseman 
was  mobbed  in  the  streets.  Accordingly,  on  the 

1851.  7th  of  February  1851,  Lord  John  Russell  intro- 
duced the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  and  over 
this  miserable  measure  nearly  the  whole  session 
was  wasted.  In  its  original  shape  it  forbade  the 
assumption  of  any  episcopal  or  territorial  title 
without  the  authority  of  Parliament,  and  the  cir- 
culation in  England  of  Papal  Rescripts,  under  a 
penalty  of  a  hundred  pounds.  If  such  a  title  were 
assumed,  any  bequest  or  donation  of  trust  property 
to  the  person  assuming  it  as  such  would  be  null  and 
void.  The  first  member  of  Parliament  to  raise  his 
voice  against  this  futile  persecution  was  John  Bright, 
who  retorted  upon  the  Church  of  England  the 
epithets  that  the  Bishops  had  been  directing  against 
the  Church  of  Rome.  Mr.  Frederick  Peel,  taking 
a  higher  line,  argued  that  it  was  vain  to  attack 
spiritual  power  with  temporal  weapons.  Mr. 
Disraeli,  who  must  have  regarded  the  whole  agita- 
tion with  profound  contempt,  taunted  the  Govern- 
ment with  having  brought  in  a  paltry  Bill  totally 
inadequate  for  its  purpose.  Nevertheless  he  voted 
Feb.  14.  for  it,  and  only  63  members,  including  the  Irish 
Catholics,  had  the  courage  to  vote  against  it  at  the 
first  stage. 

But  the  Government  had  fallen  into  a  miser- 
.  able  state  of  weakness,  and  the  Budget  did  little 
to  strengthen  them.  Sir  Charles  Wood  had  a 
surplus  of  £1,800,000.  He  proposed  that  one 
million  should  be  devoted  to  the  payment  of  debt ; 
that  an  inhabited  house  duty  should  be  substituted 
for  the  window  tax  ;  that  half  the  duty  on  foreign 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  201 

timber  should  be  taken  off;  that  the  coffee  duty  1351. 
should  be  lowered  ;  and  that  a  grant  -  in  -  aid,  *fetpheeal 
estimated  at  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds, 
should  be  handed  over  to  the  local  authorities  for 
the  maintenance  of  pauper  lunatics.  This  grant 
was  paltry  in  itself,  and  inconsistent  with  the  case 
set  up  by  Sir  Charles  Wood  in  the  debate  on  Mr. 
Disraeli's  motion,  but  it  proved  a  most  dangerous 
and  fatal  precedent.  Three  days  after  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Budget  the  Government  suffered  an 
ignominious,  almost  a  contemptuous,  defeat.  On 
the  20th  of  February  Mr.  Locke  King,  Member 
for  East  Surrey,  moved  for  leave  to  introduce  a 
Bill  equalising  the  county  and  borough  franchise 
at  a  uniform  valuation  of  ten  pounds.  Mr.  Locke 
King  referred  to  the  Irish  Act  of  the  previous 
year,  and  quoted  statistics  to  prove  that  in  England, 
as  well  as  in  Ireland,  the  number  of  county  electors 
was  diminishing.  He  was  supported  by  Hume 
and  Cobden.  Lord  John  most  unwisely  opposed 
the  motion.  He  was  himself,  as  is  now  known, 
anxious  to  bring  in  a  Reform  Bill  that  year,  and 
had  reluctantly  yielded  to  the  majority  of  the 
Cabinet.  He  promised  one  for  the  following 
session.  But  that  did  not  satisfy  the  Radicals,  and 
the  Protectionists  deliberately  stayed  away.  The 
result  was  startling.  The  Ayes  to  the  right  were 
100.  The  Noes  to  the  left  were  52.  The  Bill 
was  brought  in,  and  the  Government  went  out. 
But  the  Government  came  back  again,  and  the 
second  reading  of  the  Bill  was  defeated  by  a  large 
majority. 

The  confusion  of  parties  was  never  more  com- 
plete than  on  this  20th  of  February  1851.  The 
Government  had  been  upset  by  the  Radicals,  but 
the  Queen  could  hardly  send  for  Mr.  Cobden. 
She  sent  for  Lord  Stanley,  who  was  at  once  a 
Protectionist  and  a  Reformer.  Lord  Stanley 


202   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i85i.  neither  accepted  at  once,  nor  declined  at  once,  the 
Stanley's  task  entrusted  to  him.  He  said  he  would  not 
refusal.  undertake  it  until  Lord  John  Russell  had  made 
an  attempt  to  coalesce  with  the  Peelites.  This 
Lord  John  was  ready  enough  to  do.  But  the 
Peelites,  of  whom  Lord  Aberdeen  was  then  the 
acknowledged  head,  had  an  insurmountable  objec- 
tion to  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  and  no  Govern- 
ment which  dropped  that  Bill  could  have  lived 
a  week.  Lord  John,  Lord  Aberdeen,  and  Lord 
Lansdowne  were  summoned  to  the  Palace  together. 
On  other  points  they  were  substantially  agreed. 
Their  different  interpretation  of  religious  liberty 
kept  them  apart.  Lord  Stanley  was  sent  for  again, 
and  told  that  the  combination  he  had  suggested 
was  impossible.  He  then  tried  the  Peelites  him- 
self, offering  places  in  the  Cabinet  to  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  Lord  Canning.  Mr.  Gladstone  might,  if  he 
pleased,  have  been  Foreign  Secretary,  and  Leader 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  But  even  if  Lord 
Stanley  had  not  been  as  warm  a  supporter  of 
legislation  against  the  Roman  Catholics  as  Lord 
John  himself,  the  ghost  of  Protection,  for  it  was 
no  more,  stood  between  the  free  traders  and  their 
opponents.  Greville  says  that  Lord  Stanley  was 
not  at  this  time  really  desirous  of  forming  a 
Government.  This  view  is  not  consistent  with 
Lord  Stanley's  own  explanations  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  He  did  his  best,  and  he  failed.  He  was 
no  doubt  most  naturally  and  sincerely  anxious  to 
associate  with  him  men  of  intellect  and  character 
whom  he  had  known  as  colleagues  in  former 
days.  He  did  not  wish  to  rely  merely  upon  the 
dregs  of  the  Conservative  party,  even  when  il- 
luminated by  the  genius  of  Mr.  Disraeli.  He 
was  not  sorry  to  take  advantage  of  one  man's 
modesty,  another  man's  scruples,  and  the  in- 
capacity of  a  third.  But  he  would  have  liked 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  203 

to  form  a  really  strong  Administration,  and   no  1351 
attachment  to  the  Corn  Laws  would  have  stood 
in  his  way. 

On  the  28th  of  February  1851,  elaborate  ex- 
planations were  made  in  both  Houses  by  Lord 
Lansdowne,  Lord  Aberdeen,  Lord  Stanley,  Lord 
John  Russell,  and  Sir  James  Graham.  From  these 
it  appeared  that  the  Queen  had  tried  every  possible 
combination,  and  all  without  success.  Lord  Aber- 
deen himself  had  been  invited  to  try  his  hand. 
But  a  Prime  Minister  opposed  to  the  Ecclesiastical 
Titles  Bill  was  out  of  the  question.  Lord  Stanley's  J£ 
statement  was  one  of  the  most  curious  ever  sub- 
mitted to  a  Legislative  Assembly.  It  was  frank 
in  tone,  and  not  undignified  in  substance.  But 
even  frankness  may  be  pushed  to  excess,  and  Lord 
Stanley's  followers  would  have  been  more  or  less 
than  human  if  they  had  enjoyed  the  comparison 
their  leader  instituted  between  the  Peelites  and 
themselves.  Upon  the  Peelites  he  was  indeed 
severe.  He  accused  them  of  using  their  great 
talents  not  to  assist,  but  to  frustrate  the  work  of 
administration.  At  the  same  time  he  pointed  out 
with  ruthless  candour  that  they  were  remarkable 
not  only  for  their  natural  ability,  but  for  their 
official  experience,  whereas  his  own  supporters,  the 
Protectionists,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  were 
equally  destitute  of  both.  In  a  style  that  oddly 
recalls  the  parable  of  the  guests  who  all  with  one 
consent  began  to  make  excuse,  he  described  the  man 
too  modest  to  be  a  Minister,  the  man  too  much 
engrossed  with  his  own  business,  and  the  man 
whose  interests  were  exclusively  domestic.  This 
last  idea  vastly  tickled  the  more  frivolous  portion 
of  society,  and  subjected  Lord  Stanley  to  a  good 
deal  of  what  we  now  call  chaff.  But  those  who 
played  that  game  with  Stanley  almost  invariably 
got  the  worst  of  it.  "After  Lord  Stanley's 


204   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1851.  speech,"  says  Lord  Malmesbury,1  "  Lady  Jocelyn 
asked  him  whom  he  had  meant  by  the  person 
he  alluded  to  who  refused  to  join  him  on  account 
of  the  pressure  of  his  domestic  duties.  He 
answered  'Not  Jocelyn,'  at  which  she  looked  put 
out."  A  grimmer  retort  has  seldom  been  made, 
and  the  lady  could  not  deny  that  she  had  brought 
it  upon  herself.  In  the  House  of  Lords,  Lord 
Stanley  proceeded  to  explain  that  he  and  his 
political  friends  were  not  strong  enough  to  face 
the  House  of  Commons  in  a  minority  when  the 
supplies  had  not  been  voted,  and  a  dissolution  was 
impossible.  The  Queen  had  imposed  no  conditions 
on  him,  and  had  not  raised  any  objection  to  the 
use  of  the  Prerogative  for  dissolving  Parliament. 
He  hinted  fairly  enough  that  Lord  John  Russell's 
reasons  for  resigning  were  not  exhaustive.  Lord 
John  had  specified  the  narrow  majority  on  Mr. 
Disraeli's  agricultural  motion,  and  his  own  defeat 
on  Mr.  Locke  King's  Bill.  But  Lord  Stanley 
implied,  not  without  reason,  that  the  unpopularity  of 
the  Budget,  and  the  alienation  of  the  Irish  Catholic 
vote,  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  refusal  of  the 
Whigs  to  continue  in  office.  Turning  to  his  own 
policy,  he  expressed  a  strong  opinion  that  the 
income  tax  should  not  be  permanent,  pleaded  as  an 
alternative  for  a  fixed  duty  on  foreign  corn,  and 
intimated  that  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill  was  a 
hasty,  ill-considered  measure.  Then  he  sat  down, 
after  making  the  announcement  that  the  Queen 
had  applied  for  advice  to  the  most  venerable  and 
illustrious  of  her  subjects. 

Lord  Stanley  was  such  a  striking  figure,  and 
,   the  part  he  played  in  public  life,  though  not  really 
significant,  was  so  brilliantly  picturesque,  that  this 
episode  in  his  career  deserves  to  be  completed  by 
an  inimitable  page  of  Greville,  dated  the  10th  of 

1  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister,  vol.  i.  p.  280. 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  205 

April  1851  :  "  At  Newmarket  on  Sunday,  and 
returned  yesterday.  It  was  worth  while  to  be 
there  to  see  Stanley.  A  few  weeks  ago  he  was 
on  the  point  of  being  Prime  Minister,  which  only 
depended  on  himself.  Then  he  stood  up  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  delivered  an  oration  full  of 
gravity  and  dignity,  such  as  became  the  man  who 
had  just  undertaken  to  form  an  Administration. 
A  few  days  ago  he  was  feasted  in  Merchant  Taylors' 
Hall,  amidst  a  vast  assembly  of  lords  and  commons, 
who  all  acknowledged  him  as  their  chief.  He  was 
even  complimented  amid  thunders  of  applause  upon 
his  great  and  statesmanlike  qualities,  and  he  again 
delivered  an  oration,  serious  as  befitted  the  lofty 
capacity  in  which  he  then  appeared.  If  any  of  his 
vociferous  disciples  and  admirers,  if  some  grave 
members  of  either  House  of  Parliament,  or  any 
distinguished  foreigner  who  knew  nothing  of  Lord 
Stanley,  but  what  he  saw,  heard,  or  read  of  him, 
could  have  suddenly  found  themselves  in  the  bet- 
ting-room at  Newmarket  on  Tuesday  evening 
and  seen  Stanley  there,  I  think  they  would  have 
been  in  a  pretty  state  of  astonishment.  There  he 
was,  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd  of  blacklegs,  betting 
men,  and  loose  characters  of  every  description,  in 
uproarious  spirits,  chaffing,  rowing,  and  shouting 
with  laughter  and  joking.  His  amusement  was  to 
lay  Lord  Glasgow  a  wager  that  he  did  not  sneeze 
in  a  given  time,  for  which  purpose  he  took  pinch 
after  pinch  of  snuff,  while  Stanley  jeered  him  and 
quizzed  him  with  such  noise  that  he  drew  the 
whole  mob  around  him  to  partake  of  the  coarse 
merriment  he  excited.  It  really  was  a  sight  and  a 
wonder  to  see  any  man  playing  such  different  parts, 
and  I  don't  suppose  there  is  any  other  man  who  would 
act  so  naturally,  and  obey  all  his  natural  impulses 
in  such  a  way,  utterly  regardless  of  appearances, 
and  not  caring  what  anybody  might  think  of  the 


206   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i85i.  minister  and  the  statesman,  so  long  as  he  could 
have  his  fun."  Although  Bulwer  Lytton  drew  an 
admirable  portrait  of  this  singular  personage  in  his 
fine  poem  "  St.  Stephen's,"  only  Dryden  could  have 
done  full  justice  to  the  various  moods  of  Lord 
Stanley.1 

The  Duke  of  Wellington,  never  original  and 
always  sensible,  recommended  Her  Majesty  to 
send  once  more  for  Lord  John  and  the  old  gang. 
Accordingly  they  all  returned,  and  while  the 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill  dragged  its  slow  length 
along,  Sir  Charles  Wood  proceeded  to  reconstruct 
his  Budget  just  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  The 
confusion  of  parties  spelt  the  stability  of  the  Whigs. 
Sir  Charles  Wood's  Budgets  were  like  the  American 
politician's  opinions.  If  they  were  not  acceptable, 
they  could  always  be  altered.  In  1851  the  inevi- 
table transformation  was  effected  on  the  5th  of 
April.  The  grant  from  the  Treasury  to  the  rates 
for  pauper  lunatics  was  abandoned.  The  window 
tax  disappeared,  and  this  was  Wood's  one  great 
financial  achievement ;  but  the  duty  on  inhabited 
houses  was  entirely  rearranged.  All  houses  rated 
below  twenty  pounds  were  to  be  entirely  ex- 
empted. Ninepence  in  the  pound  was  to  be  paid 
on  dwelling-houses,  and  sixpence  in  the  pound  on 
shops.  This  absorbed  the  available  surplus,  and 
no  more  was  said  about  the  necessity  of  reducing 
the  National  Debt.  In  spite  of  these  concessions 
Sir  Charles  Wood  suffered  defeat.  Mr.  Hume 
carried  against  him,  by  a  majority  of  14,  an 
amendment  limiting  the  income  tax  to  one  year, 
and  next  month  a  Select  Committee  was  appointed 
to  consider  the  whole  subject.  But  although  these 
changes  and  chances  weakened  the  moral  authority 
of  the  Government,  the  still  feebler  position  of  the 

1  A  man  so  various  that  he  seemed  to  be 
Not  one,  but  all  mankind's  epitome. 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  207 

Protectionists,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  1351 
preserved  them  from  immediate  overthrow.  The 
Great  Exhibition,  opened  in  Hyde  Park  on  the 
1st  of  May  by  the  Queen  in  person,  temporarily 
distracted  the  public  mind  from  political  disputes. 
This  great  commercial  enterprise  was  conceived  by 
Prince  Albert,  who  had  been  assisted  in  its  earlier 
stages  by  Sir  Robert  Peel.  The  building,  now  so 
familiar  as  the  Crystal  Palace,  was  designed  by 
Mr.  Paxton.1  The  exhibition  was  open  to  the 
whole  world,  and  gave  a  great  stimulus  to  inter- 
national trade.  By  the  advice  of  the  Prince,  to 
whom  the  whole  credit  belongs,  a  Parliamentary 
grant  was  avoided,  and  subscriptions  were  received 
to  the  amount  of  seventy -five  thousand  pounds. 
The  show  was  not  closed  till  October,  and  its 
success  was  complete. 

Before  Lord  John  Russell  returned  to  office, 
he  had  become  aware  of  the  passionate  resent- 
ment which  he  had  aroused  in  Ireland  by  his 
ecclesiastical  policy,  and  he  had  also  been  im- 
pressed by  his  conference  with  the  Peelites,  who 
alone,  with  a  few  Radicals,  kept  their  heads.  On 
the  7th  of  March  the  Home  Secretary  announced 
that  all  the  clauses  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles 
Bill  after  the  first,  which  prohibited  the  new 
titles  and  the  publication  of  Papal  Bulls  in 
England,  would  be  dropped;  that  charitable  be- 
quests in  Ireland  would  not  be  restricted,  and 
that  safeguards  would  be  provided  for  Bishops  of 
the  Episcopal  Church  in  Scotland.  The  debate 
upon  the  second  reading  of  this  ridiculous  Bill 
lasted  for  seven  weary  nights.  The  Irish  Catholics 
naturally  did  all  they  could  to  obstruct  it.  The 
regular  Opposition,  on  the  other  hand,  found  that 
they  had  got  hold  of  a  good  thing.  They  did  not 
oppose  the  Bill.  On  the  contrary,  *hey  condemned 

1  Created  Sir  Joseph  Paxton. 


208   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1851.  it  as  insufficient,  and  taunted  Ministers  with  not 
acting  up  to  the  Durham  letter.  Punch  published 
the  celebrated  cartoon  of  Lord  John  as  the  mis- 
chievous urchin  who  chalked  "  No  Popery "  on 
Wiseman's  door,  and  then  ran  away.  Ministers 
were  asked  to  explain  why  Lord  Clarendon  had 
recognised  the  territorial  titles  of  the  Irish  Bishops. 
For  even  those  who  most  strongly  resisted  the  pro- 
posed penalties  acknowledged  that  these  titles  were 
not  valid  in  law.  No  explanation  was  given,  for 
there  was  no  explanation  to  give.  Nor  could  Lord 
John  deny  that  he  had  sent  Lord  Minto  on  a 
mission  to  the  Pope,  and  had  carried  three  years 
before  a  Bill  for  authorising  diplomatic  relations 
with  the  Court  of  Rome.  Everything  said  against 
the  Government  in  this  debate  was  well  merited, 
and  the  Prime  Minister  was  told  fairly  enough 
that  the  name  of  Russell  could  no  longer  be 
associated  with  civil  and  religious  liberty.  All 
the  arguments  were  against  the  Bill,  though  the 
numbers  for  it  were  overwhelming.  The  third 
Sir  Robert  Peel  delivered  his  maiden  speech  in 
opposition  to  his  wiser  brother,  and  in  support  of 
a  measure  which  his  father  would  have  eschewed. 
The  Solicitor -General,  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn, 
whose  morals  were  unfortunately  much  less  doubt- 
ful than  his  creed,  set  himself  up  as  the  violent 
and  vituperative  champion  of  the  Protestant 
religion,  which  could  well  have  dispensed  with  his 
aid.  Mr.  Henry  Drummond,  the  Irvingite,  a  man 
of  ostentatious  piety,  reviled  the  Roman  Catholic 
faith  in  language  so  disgusting  that  it  cannot  be 
quoted  even  as  an  example  of  the  temper  in 
which  Parliament  was  passing  penal  laws.  Mr. 
Page  Wood  was  for  once  carried  away  by  the 
current,  and  departed  from  the  consistent  Liberal- 
ism of  his  life.  But  the  sound  and  fury  of  a  sham 
patriotism  and  a  burlesque  Protestantism  were 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  209 

empty  and  hollow  indeed  when  compared  with  the  issi. 
dignified  and  impressive  speeches  of  Mr.  Roundell 
Palmer,1  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  Sir  James  Graham, 
and  Mr.  Gladstone.  Mr.  Herbert  drily  remarked 
that  there  would  have  been  no  popular  excitement 
if  the  new  Bishops  had  been  called  overseers.  Sir 
James  Graham  somewhat  marred  the  effect  of  Stum  oMhe 
an  excellent  speech  by  predicting  civil  war  mPeelite8 
Ireland.  He  was  often  too  apt  to  take  the  tone 
of  Mr.  Croaker  in  the  Good-natured  Man.  But 
his  plea  for  religious  toleration,  like  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's for  religious  freedom,  was  firmly  ex- 
pressed and  nobly  conceived.  Between  them  they 
effectually  demolished  Lord  John's  contention 
that  the  Pope  was  claiming  temporal  sovereignty 
in  these  islands.  He  was  doing  nothing  of  the 
sort.  His  temporal  sovereignty  was  Italian,  and 
bad  enough  in  all  conscience.  What  he  claimed 
here  was  the  exercise  of  spiritual  authority  within 
the  limits  of  his  own  Church,  and  that  no  Act 
of  Parliament  could  prevent. 

When   the  Bill  reached   the  stage  of  Report  Tj!e  iiumiii- 

t\    T  •  i  •  i  •       •  *»  -I  i  ation  of  the 

on  the  27th  ot  June,  a  just  humiliation  fell  upono^ern- 
the  Government.  Sir  Frederick  Thesiger 2  had 
several  amendments  upon  the  paper  for  strengthen- 
ing the  Bill.  Lord  John  Russell  repudiated  them 
as  unnecessary.  The  most  important  and  the  most 
odious  of  them  enabled  a  common  informer  to  sue 
for  penalties  with  the  consent  of  the  Attorney- 
General.  The  Irish  Catholics  walked  out  of  the 
House,  and  the  amendments  were  carried.  Thus 
Lord  Lansdowne  had  to  propose  in  the  House  of 
Lords  a  Bill  of  which  he  and  his  colleagues  did 
not  approve.  Nevertheless  it  passed  that  House 
without  difficulty,  and  received  the  Royal  Assent 
on  the  1st  of  August.  Lord  Aberdeen  moved  its 

1  Afterwards  Lord  Selborue. 
2  Afterwards  Lord  Chelmsford. 
VOL.  I  P 


1851.  rejection,  which  was  seconded  by  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle.  But  they  had  only  thirty -eight 
supporters,  most  of  whom  were  Catholics,  though 
they  included  Lord  Canning.  The  Duke  of 
Wellington,  as  usual,  stood  by  the  Government. 
Lord  Lyndhurst  recanted  his  recantation  of  1829. 
It  is  painful  to  record  the  fact  that  the  Bishop  of 
St.  David's  spoke  and  voted  for  this  Bill.  Strong 
indeed  must  have  been  the  wave  of  intolerance 
which  swept  Connop  Thirlwall  off  his  principles. 

Lord  Aberdeen,  in  the  course  of  his  speech, 
ouehfeUActty  predicted  that  the  Bill,  or  rather  the  Act,  would 
be  a  dead  letter.  Never  was  prophecy  more 
absolutely  fulfilled.  Bishop  Wilberforce  expressed 
a  pious  hope  that  the  Government  would  not  be 
content  with  legislating  against  his  fellow-Christians 
and  brother  Bishops,  but  would  also  prosecute 
them.  No  such  prosecution  was  ever  undertaken. 
No  common  informer  was  ever  allowed  to  sue. 
No  penalty  imposed  by  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles 
Act  was  ever  enforced.  The  Catholic  Bishops 
politely  ignored  its  provisions.  Their  leading- 
paper,  the  Tablet,  ostentatiously  defied  the  law, 
and  nothing  happened.  At  an  early  stage  of  the 
Parliamentary  debates,  Mr.  Milner  Gibson,  being 
asked  by  Lord  John  Russell  what  his  plan  was, 
replied  that  his  plan  was  to  do  nothing  at  all.  If 
that  plan  had  been  followed,  wasted  months  would 
have  been  saved,  though  it  is  true  that  some 
eloquent  pleas  for  truly  Liberal  principles  would 
have  been  left  unspoken.  The  Act  found  its 
grave  in  the  Statute  Book,  a  grave  of  con- 
temptuous oblivion.  It  was  repealed  in  1871, 
but  the  process  excited  no  more  interest  than  if 
it  had  been  a  formal  step  of  the  Statute  Law 
Revision  Committee.  The  British  Parliament 
never  sank  so  low  before  or  since  as  it  sank  in 
1851.  The  best  result  of  this  ignoble  squabble 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  211 

was  Newman's  Lectures  on  the  Present  Position  issi. 
of  Catholics  in  England,  which,  to  say  nothing  of 
their    eloquence,    are    as    witty    as    anything    of 
Sydney  Smith's. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  Jews  were  treated  ££teholicg 
with  as  much  intolerance  as  the  Roman  Catholics, 
But  there  is  this  difference.  A  special  law  was 
framed  against  the  Catholics.  The  House  of 
Lords  refused  to  relieve  the  Jews  from  an  unjust 
law  already  made.  On  the  26th  of  July  1850, 
Baron  Rothschild,  having  accepted  the  Chiltern 
Hundreds,  and  been  re-elected  for  the  City  of 
London,  had  presented  himself  to  be  sworn,  and 
had  claimed  to  take  the  oaths  on  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. After  long  and  acrimonious  debates,  his 
claim  had  been  allowed  by  the  House.  The 
Baron  then  took  the  oaths  in  the  usual  form 
until  he  came  to  the  oath  of  abjuration,  when 
he  omitted  the  words  "on  the  true  faith  of  a 
Christian."  Sir  Frederick  Thesiger,  a  zealot  in 
the  cause  of  religious  persecution  so  far  as  the 
usages  of  the  nineteenth  century  permitted,  im- 
mediately moved  a  new  writ,  on  the  ground  that 
the  seat  was  vacant.  This  preposterous  motion 
having  been  negatived,  Mr.  Page  Wood  took  up 
the  opposite  extreme,  and  argued  with  great 
ability  that  Baron  Rothschild  had  fulfilled  the 
obligations  of  the  law,  inasmuch  as  he  had  sworn 
in  words  binding  on  his  conscience.  Nothing  in 
Lord  Hatherley's  long  and  distinguished  career  does 
him  more  honour  than  the  struggle  which  he,  a 
pious  churchman  of  the  straitest  evangelical  ortho- 
doxy, conducted  on  behalf  of  a  then  despised  and 
down -trodden  sect.  The  Government  took  a 
middle  course,  and  finally  the  House  resolved, 
first,  that  the  Baron  could  not  take  his  seat ; 
secondly,  that  a  Bill  should  be  introduced  next 
year  enabling  him  to  do  so.  Accordingly  in 


212   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1851. 1851  a  Jewish  Relief  Bill  was  for  the  third  time 
passed  by  the  House  of  Commons,  and  for  the 
third  time  rejected  by  the  House  of  Lords,  the 
hostile  majority  being  36.  Thereupon  Alderman 
Salomons,  who  had  been  returned  at  a  by-election 
for  Greenwich,  repeated  the  claim  of  Baron  Roth- 
schild. But  he  went  further.  For  after  taking 
the  oath  in  the  form  binding  upon  his  conscience, 
he  also  took  his  seat,  addressed  the  House  in  a 
spirited  harangue,  and  only  withdrew  under  pro- 
test when  the  Serjeant -at -Arms  tapped  him  on 
the  shoulder.  Mr.  Page  Wood,  having  become 
Solicitor -General,  was  precluded  from  taking  in- 
dependent action.  But  his  place  was  supplied 
by  Mr.  Bethell,  afterwards  Lord  Westbury,  the 
most  brilliant,  if  not  the  most  scrupulous,  of 
contemporary  lawyers.  The  Legislature  could 
not  have  regarded  the  oath  of  abjuration  as 
essential,  for  they  repealed  it  in  the  case  of 
Catholics.  But  the  view  of  Sir  John  Romilly, 
now  Master  of  the  Rolls,  and  Sir  Alexander 
Cockburn,  now  Attorney  -  General,  that  Jews 
could  not  take  their  seats  without  legislation,  was 
upheld  in  Miller  v.  Salomons  by  a  majority  in 
the  Court  of  Exchequer,  and  by  the  whole  Court 
of  Exchequer  Chamber.  Lord  Campbell,  who 
presided  at  the  hearing  of  the  Appeal,  said  that 
his  mind  was  free  from  doubt,  although  he  had 
voted  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament  for  the 
removal  of  Jewish  disabilities,  and  was  prepared 
to  do  so  again.  Thus  the  one  thing  which  stood 
between  the  Jews  and  justice  was  the  House 
of  Lords.  But  that  was  a  formidable  barrier, 
because  there  was  no  popular  movement  strong 
enough  to  break  it  down.  Lord  Ashley,  who  had 
become  Lord  Shaftesbury  by  the  death  of  his 
father,  took  the  same  line  in  the  House  of  Lords 
as  he  had  taken  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  213 

and  Sir  Robert  Inglis,  and  perhaps  a  few  others,  1851. 
honestly  believed  that  if  Christians  were  allowed 
not  to  vote  for  Jews,  for  that  they  could  do 
already,  but  to  be  represented  by  Jews,  the 
Christian  character  of  the  country  would  be 
destroyed.  Upon  men  whose  minds  were  so 
constituted  argument  was  thrown  away.  They 
were  unable  even  to  see  the  contrast  between 
what  they  could  do  and  what  they  could  not. 
They  could  keep  out  a  Rothschild  or  a  Salomons, 
whose  exclusion  or  inclusion  was  of  equally  little 
importance.  They  could  not  keep  out  the  Member 
for  Buckinghamshire,  who  regarded  religion  as  a 
secret  of  the  Semitic  race,  and  laughed  at  their 
mushroom  creeds.  Mr.  Disraeli  himself  showed 
no  disposition  to  fight  the  matter  any  further. 
He  said,  and  it  was  true  enough,  that  his  own 
position  was  shared  by  no  one  else.  He  had  no 
belief  in  the  principles  of  religious  equality.  He 
held  that  Judaism  was  the  root  of  Christianity, 
and  entitled  to  special  privileges  as  such.  As 
for  religious  toleration,  he  would  probably  have 
agreed  with  Tom  Paine,  who  said  that  its  logical 
result  would  be  a  Bill  for  enabling  the  Almighty 
to  receive  the  worship  of  Jews. 

The  Jews  and  the  Catholics  occupied  between 
them  nearly  the  whole  session  of  1851.  But  two  Legal 
useful  measures  of  legal  reform  passed  both  Houses re 
before  the  Prorogation  on  the  8th  of  August. 
One  provided  for  the  adrnissibility  as  witnesses  of 
parties  to  civil  actions,  which  would  have  made 
Bardell  v.  Pickwick  impossible.  The  other  created 
two  Lords  Justices  to  assist  the  Lord  Chancellor 
in  hearing  Chancery  Appeals.  Lord  Cranworth, 
then  Vice-Chancellor,  became  the  first  of  the  new 
Lords  Justices,  and  Knight-Bruce  the  second. 

South  Africa  was  throughout  1851  the  scene  The  last 
of  a  Kaffir  war.      The  conflict  broke  out  at  the 


214   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i85i.  end  of  1850,  and  the  Governor  of  Cape  Colony, 
Sir  Harry  Smith,  the  victor  of  Aliwal,  underrated 
its  gravity.  The  cause  of  this  Kaffir  rising,  which 
was  augmented  by  the  Hottentots,  and  made  more 
formidable  by  the  desertion  of  the  Cape  Mounted 
Rifles,  is  believed  to  have  been  partly  famine 
from  loss  of  cattle,  and  partly  the  discontent  of 
the  Cape  Colonists  with  the  Government  at 
home.  Lord  Grey  thought  that  Sir  Harry  had 
i&52 10>  acted  without  proper  consideration,  and  ultimately 
recalled  him  in  favour  of  General  Cathcart,  who 
ImitiS  finished  the  war.  Sir  Harry  Smith  was  a  gallant 
Lord  Grey.  ancj  pious  soldier,  a  man  of  the  Bible  and  the 
sword.  Trusting  in  his  own  personal  influence,  he 
thought  he  could  reconcile  the  Dutch  farmers 
with  the  British  and  with  the  natives  by  attend- 
ance at  Boer  prayer-meetings  and  by  ostentatious 
patronage  of  native  chiefs.  Simple,  generous,  and 
high-minded,  he  never  realised  the  impossibility  of 
persuading  the  Boer  to  regard  the  Kaffir  as  his 
equal.  His  eccentric  enthusiasm  got  him  into 
trouble,  and  Lord  Grey  was  justified  in  remov- 
ing him  from  his  post.1  Lord  Grey,  however, 
had  himself  been  guilty  of  grievous  error  in 
endeavouring  to  thrust  upon  Cape  Colony  the 
hateful  system  of  transportation.  This  Kaffir  war 
delayed  the  introduction  of  self-government  at 
the  Cape,  for  which  letters  patent  had  been  issued 
by  the  Crown.  It  has  been  held  by  the  highest 
legal  authorities,  and  was  asserted  by  Lord  Lynd- 
hurst  in  debate,  that  a  grant  of  this  kind  cannot 
be  revoked,  and  can  only  be  abrogated  by  statute. 
But  while  the  Kaffir  war  was  raging,  both  Dutch 
and  British  were  so  insecure  that  to  carry  out 

1  The  Duke  of  Wellington  expressed  in  the  House  of  Lords  the 
opinion  that  the  military  grounds  for  recalling  Sir  Harry  Smith  were 
inadequate.  But  there  were  political  grounds  also,  upon  which  the 
Duke  was  silent. 


ENGLAND  &  THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  215 

constitutional  reforms  was  a  practical  impossibility.  1851. 
Lord  Grey's  two  volumes  of  letters  to  Lord  John 
Russell,  published  in  1853,  are  a  clear  and  forcible 
vindication  of  his  Colonial  policy.  He  was  one  of 
the  ablest  men  who  ever  presided  at  the  Colonial 
Office,  and  his  Colonial  reforms  were  excellent  in 
themselves.  His  chief  fault  was  a  lecturing, 
pedantic  manner,  which  took  the  savour  from 
concession,  and  added  a  sting  to  rebuffs. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

THE   LITERATURE    OF   THE    MID    CENTURY 

1850.  ON  the  23rd  of  April  1850,  the  anniversary  of 
Shakespeare's  birth  and  death,  died  William 
Wordsworth  in  his  eighty-first  year.  The  fount 
had  long  been  mute ;  the  channel  had  long  been 
dry.  But  Wordsworth  had  everything  that  should 
accompany  old  age,  "as  honour,  love,  obedience, 
troops  of  friends."  He  had  outgrown  his  early 
unpopularity,  and  survived  almost  all  his  detractors. 
He  was  a  classic  in  his  lifetime,  and  those  who 
were  not  convinced  had  at  least  been  put  to  silence. 
Since  the  death  of  South ey  he  had  been  Poet 
Laureate.  Although  the  Birthday  Odes  which 
furnished  material  for  Peter  Pindar  and  other  wits 
had  fallen  into  disuse,  it  was  determined  to  keep 
up  the  post,  and  the  first  offer  went  to  Samuel 
Rogers,  Wordsworth's  senior  by  seven  years. 
Rogers  was  a  true  poet,  and  his  Italy  is  full  of 
exquisite  passages.  But  when  he  declined  the 
honour  on  account  of  his  great  age,  it  passed  to 
one  whose  imagination  was  loftier,  and  whose 
The  new  range  was  wider,  than  his  own.  Alfred  Tennyson 
B'  was  then  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  had  recently 
published  In  Memoriam.  His  earlier  poems  had 
made  him  famous,  and  it  was  to  Ulysses  that  he 
owed  the  pension  given  him  by  Peel,  which  saved 
him  from  the  necessity  of  working  for  his  bread. 
That  is  not  a  very  hard  fate  for  most  people,  but 

216 


LITERATURE  OF  MID  CENTURY  217 

it  would  have  distracted  Tennyson  from  the  proper  1350. 
business  of  his  life.  It  is  not  without  a  shock  that 
one  connects  In  Memoriam  with  an  office  in  the 
Royal  household.  In  Memoriam  is,  as  everybody 
knows,  a  passionate  lamentation  for  the  author's 
college  friend,  Arthur  Hallam,  son  of  the  historian, 
who  had  died  so  far  back  as  1833.  Advanced 
thinkers  have  attacked  the  philosophy  of  the  poem 
as  shallow.  But  it  is  not  really  a  philosophical 
poem  at  all.  Its  subjects  are  the  great  common- 
places of  life  and  death,  and  grief,  and  remem- 
brance, and  the  loss  of  friends.  There  too  may  be 
found  that  natural  yearning  for  the  assurance  of 
immortality  which  has  no  more  to  do  with  systems 
of  philosophy  than  with  systems  of  mathematics. 
Tennyson's  creed,  so  far  as  it  can  be  gathered 
from  his  poems,  was  pure  theism.  About  the 
sublime  beauty  of  the  verse  there  could  not  be 
two  opinions  among  competent  judges.  In  that 
respect  Tennyson  is  not  surpassed  by  Milton,  or 
by  Shelley.  Some  contemporary  notices  of  In 
Memoriam  throw  into  the  shade  by  their  stupid 
perversity  the  Edinburgh  on  Wordsworth,  or  the 
Quarterly  on  Keats.  But  those  whose  deepest 
feelings  were  revealed  and  interpreted  to  them  in 
a  threnody  that  ranks  with  Lycidas  or  Adonais 
did  not  care  for  sneers  at  the  "  Amaryllis  of  the 
Chancery  Bar,"  and  the  critic  who  confessed  his 
inability  to  identify 

The  shadow  cloaked  from  head  to  foot, 
That  keeps  the  key  of  all  the  creeds, 

should  have  left  the  higher  literature  alone. 

From  that  time  till  his  death,  more  than  forty 
years  afterwards,  Tennyson  was  the  acknowledged 
head  of  English  poetry.  The  choice  of  the 
Sovereign,  or  of  the  Minister,  set  the  seal  to  public 
opinion,  which  it  did  not  make.  He  was  not 


218    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1850.  appointed  till  the  5th   of  November,  nearly  seven 
months   after  Wordsworth's   death.1      The   letter 
came  from  the  Queen,  not  from  Lord  John  Russell, 
and  was  signed  by   her   private   secretary.      But 
Lord  John  must  have  been  consulted,  and  his  taste 
in  such  matters  was  sound.     Tennyson  "  took  the 
whole  day  to  consider,  and  at  the  last  wrote  two 
letters,  one  accepting,  one  refusing,  and  determined 
to  make  up  his  mind  after  consultation  with  his 
friends  at  dinner."2      In  vino  sapientia.      As  the 
position  of  Laureate  was  to  be  retained,  the  public 
interest  required  that  it  should  be  occupied  by  the 
foremost  poet  of  the  age,  and  not  by  some  spiritual 
descendant   of  Eusden   or   Pye.      Tennyson   had 
occasionally   to  write   Court   odes,   and   they  are 
perhaps  the  least  successful  specimens  of  his  art. 
But  nobody  else  could  have  written  them  better, 
and  they  never  lack   dignity  of  tone.     His  first 
poem    as    Laureate,    and   one    of    his   best,   was 
naturally  addressed   to  the  Queen.      It  is  dated 

1851.  March  1851,  and  opens  with  the  familiar  stanzas- 

Revered,  beloved — O  you  that  hold 
A  nobler  office  upon  earth 
Than  arms,  or  power  of  brain,  or  birth 

Could  give  the  warrior  kings  of  old, 

Victoria, — since  your  Royal  grace 
To  one  of  less  desert  allows 
The  laurel  greener  from  the  brows 

Of  him  that  utter' d  nothing  base. 

To  say  that  Wordsworth  "  uttered  nothing  base  " 
might  be  described  by  a  Wordsworthian  as  damn- 
ing him  with  faint  praise.  That  Tennyson  had 
no  such  idea  is  plain  from  what  he  says  himself 

1  Lord  John  Russell  suggested  also  to  the  Queen  the  names  of 
Sheridan  Kiiowles  and  Henry  Taylor.     Her  Majesty  chose  Tennyson 
under  the  influence  of  the  Prince,  who  was  a  great  admirer  of  In 
Memoriam. 

2  Tennyson:  a  Memoir,  by  Hallam,  Lord  Tennyson,  vol.  i.  p.  336. 


LITERATURE  OF  MID  CENTURY  219 

in  his  Diary  for  the  21st  of  February  185 1.1  He  i85i. 
thinks  that  in  this  poem  "the  empire  of  Words- 
worth should  be  asserted ;  for  he  was  a  re- 
presentative Poet  Laureate,  such  a  poet  as  kings 
should  honour,  and  such  an  one  as  would  do 
honour  to  kings — making  the  period  of  a  reign 
famous  by  the  utterance  of  memorable  words  con- 
cerning that  period."  This  is  a  singular  judgment, 
for  few  think  of  Wordsworth  in  connection  with 
any  period,  or  any  reign,  and  what  official  poetry 
he  wrote  has  been  long  since  forgotten.  But  at 
least  it  shows  a  thorough  admiration  on  Tenny- 
son's part  for  his  illustrious  predecessor. 

The  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  not 
a  good  literary  reputation.  But  it  is  literary 
criticism,  rather  than  literary  production,  that  was 
at  fault.  Besides  In  Memoriam  there  appeared 
Mrs.  Browning's  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese, 
which  are  the  most  original,  the  most  impas- 
sioned, and  the  most  melodious  of  all  her  verses. 
If  she  had  published  only  these,  with  a  few 
lyrics,  such  as  "  The  Great  God  Pan,"  and  "  The 
Swan's  Nest  among  the  Reeds,"  her  reputation, 
high  as  it  is,  would  probably  stand  higher. 
Aurora  Leigh  may  be  excepted,  for  it  is  rather 
a  novel  in  verse  than  a  poem.  David  Copper-  David 

/?    77  11-11,1  •.  ,i         i     Copper/it  Id, 

nela,  published  the  same  year,  was  its  author  s 
favourite,  and  perhaps  his  masterpiece.  Mr. 
Micawber  is  almost  as  well  known  as  Falstaff, 
and  in  the  unexpected  raciness  of  his  humour  he 
may  be  called  Shakespearean.  It  is  known  that 
Dickens  put  more  of  himself  into  this  book  than 
in  any  other.  Hence  the  vivid  reality  which 
shines  through  the  caricature.  The  fame  and 
power  of  Dickens  were  now  at  their  height.  He 
was  a  more  genial,  though  not  a  more  sentimental 
moralist  than  Thackeray.  If  he  sometimes  annoyed 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.  p.  338. 


220   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1851.  practical  reformers  by  his  exaggerations,  and  his 
not  infrequent  ignorance  of  what  had  been  already 
done,  he  had  an  enormous  influence  in  softening 
the  minds  of  men,  and  disposing  them  to  schemes 
of  humanity.  In  politics  he  was  a  Radical,  if 
not  a  Socialist.  But  he  had  no  fixed  and  immut- 
able principles.  He  hated  cruelty  and  oppression. 
Whenever  he  saw  an  abuse  which  bore  upon  the 
poor,  he  went  straight  at  it,  and  his  onslaught  was 
extremely  formidable.  He  would  not  have  been 
the  force  he  was  if  he  could  have  looked  at  both 
sides  of  a  question  as  a  statesman  must  look  at 
them.  He  lived  to  see  the  abolition  of  imprisonment 
for  debt,  the  reform  of  the  Civil  Service,  and  the 
gradual  deliverance  of  the  public  from  a  barbarous 
system  of  law.  But  the  hearty  and  wholesome 
laughter  which  his  books  excited  was  not  the  least 
of  the  services  he  rendered  to  his  countrymen. 
Tennyson  In  Memoriam  was  from  the  first  a  text -book 
BroadJ  of  the  Broad  Church.  Frederick  Robertson,  the 
great  preacher  of  Brighton,  was  among  its  earnest 
and  most  enthusiastic  admirers.  Another  was 
Frederick  Denison  Maurice,  a  sort  of  English 
Bunsen,  to  whom  Tennyson  addressed  a  few  years 
afterwards  the  most  Horatian  of  all  his  poems.1  At 
that  time  Tennyson  was  to  the  latitudinarian  party 
in  the  Church  of  England  very  much  what  Burns 
had  been  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  to 
the  "Moderates"  of  the  Scottish  Establishment, 
without  the  obvious  difficulties  which  attended 
an  ecclesiastical  alliance  with  the  author  of  "  The 
Jolly  Beggars."  A  single  stanza  of  In  Memoriam 
expresses  the  views  of  these  clerical  Tennysonians. 

Perplext  in  faith,  but  pure  in  deeds, 
At  length  he  beat  his  music  out. 
There  lives  more  faith  in  honest  doubt, 

Believe  me,  than  in  half  the  creeds. 

1  "Come,  when  no  graver  cares  employ." 


dom" 


LITERATURE  OF  MID  CENTURY  221 

There  was  no  more  devout  Tennysonian  than  1351. 
Mr.  Jowett  of  Balliol,  though  it  may  be  held  to 
illustrate  the  universality  of  genius  that  in  this 
respect  Jowett  should  have  had  a  rival  in  Mr. 
Gladstone.  To  what  may  be  called  the  religious 
scepticism  of  the  age  Greg's  Creed  of  Christendom,  Greg's 
published  in  1851,  was  a  powerful  contribution. 
Mr.  Greg,  who  sometimes  wrote  as  W.  R.  G.,  was 
a  forcible  reason  er,  with  a  remarkably  lucid  style, 
a  natural  turn  for  exposing  sophistry,  and  a  fund  of 
contempt  almost  equally  divided  between  orthodox 
theologians  and  unorthodox  economists.  He  hated 
a  loose  reasoner  as  a  monk  hates  a  loose  liver,  and 
is  the  best  possible  example  of  the  school  who  hold 
that  the  world  can  be  governed  by  logic.  They 
ignore  the  profound  saying  of  David  Hume,  too 
profound  not  to  be  misunderstood,  that  reason  is, 
and  ought  to  be,  the  slave  of  the  passions.  "  But 
they  maintain  the  state  of  the  world,  and  all  their 
desire  is  in  the  work  of  their  craft."  At  the 
opposite  pole  of  thought  and  imagination,  if  indeed 
imagination  can  be  predicated  of  one,  or  thought 
of  the  other,  stood  Thomas  Carlyle,  who,  by 
a  strange  coincidence,  published  in  1851  the 
biography  of  his  friend  John  Sterling.  Carlyle  ca 
undertook  the  task  because  it  had  already  been 
performed  by  Julius  Hare,  and  he  did  not  like 
the  performance.  Sterling  was  a  Broad  Church- 
man who  left  the  Church.  Hare  was  a  Broad 
Churchman  who  remained  in  it.  Sterling,  if  the 
less  orthodox,  was  the  more  religious  man  of  the 
two.  Carlyle,  who  detested  all  churches,  wished 
to  rescue  from  "  shovel  -hatted"  patronage  the 
memory  of  his  dead  friend.  He  completely  suc- 
ceeded, and  wiped  Hare's  book  out  of  existence. 
But  he  did  much  more  than  that.  The  Life  of 
Sterling  is  a  literary  masterpiece.  One  of  the 
most  eloquent  books  that  its  eloquent  author  ever 


222    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1851.  wrote,  it  is  quite  the  most  sympathetic,  the  most 
tolerant,  the  most  genial,  and  the  most  human. 
Carlyle  was  not  an  exact  reasoner,  nor  indeed  a 
reasoner  at  all.  But  he  had  humour  and  fancy, 
and  a  deep  insight  into  spiritual  things.  He  was 
good  for  a  prosaic  age.  If  he  could  not  under- 
stand the  objections  to  slavery,  or  the  arguments 
for  representative  institutions,  he  could  appeal  to 
parts  of  man's  nature  which  the  mere  contro- 
versialist never  reaches,  and  to  minds  which 
instinctively  resent  dogmatic  treatment  of  ulti- 
mate things.  If  he  had  written  less,  he  would 
perhaps  have  written  better.  But  the  best  of 
what  he  wrote  could  hardly  be  surpassed. 
The  stone*  In  1851  Carlyle's  most  famous  disciple  pro- 
duced one  of  his  most  important  works.  Ruskin's 
Stones  of  Venice  is  a  perfectly  equal  and  sustained 
effort  of  his  genius  at  its  height.  To  call  Mr. 
Ruskin  eloquent  is  not  altogether  to  praise  him. 
For  in  the  long  run  his  eloquence  upset  the 
balance  of  his  mind,  and  carried  him  where  he 
would  not,  or  at  least  should  not,  have  gone.  But 
in  The  Stones  of  Venice  he  has  it  entirely  under 
control.  It  serves  its  proper  purpose  in  making 
beautiful  and  memorable  the  results  of  his  vast 
knowledge,  his  patient  labour,  his  artistic  en- 
thusiasm, and  his  exquisite  taste.  That  Ruskin 
discovered  Turner  is  a  popular  delusion.  Turner, 
who  died  on  the  19th  of  December  1851,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-six,  was  a  great  and  famous  painter 
long  before  Ruskin  wrote  a  line.  It  was  the  ap- 
preciation of  Italian  art,  almost  extinct  since  the 
days  of  Sir  Joshua,  who  studied  in  Italy,  that 
Ruskin  really  restored  in  England.  For  Italian  art, 
and  for  Italian  architecture  he  had  an  unbounded, 
though  not  an  indiscriminate,  enthusiasm.  The  two 
salient  points  in  The  Stones  of  Venice  are  the  Ducal 
Palace  and  the  Scuola  di  San  Rocco.  The  Ducal 


LITERATURE  OF  MID  CENTURY  223 

Palace,  because  it  is  the  great  central  building  ofissi. 
the  world,  the  meeting -place  of  the  Gothic  and 
Byzantine  styles.  The  School  of  San  Rocco, 
because  it  contains  the  principal  collection  of 
Tintoret's  pictures,  and  Mr.  Ruskin,  after  his  early 
idolatry  of  Titian  was  over,  considered  Tintoret  to 
be  the  greatest  of  all  painters,  as  his  "  Crucifixion  " 
was  the  greatest  of  all  pictures.  The  superb 
splendour  of  Ruskin's  prose  nowhere  reaches  a 
higher  level  than  in  the  contrast  which  he  draws  be- 
tween St.  Mark's  and  an  English  cathedral.  The 
index  to  The  Stones  of  Venice,  though  it  omits  the 
Carpaccios  in  San  Giorgio  dei  Schiavoni,  is  one 
of  the  best  guide  books  ever  composed.  But 
throughout  the  work,  though  its  object  is  primarily 
architectural,  there  seems  to  march  in  solemn 
grandeur  the  historical  procession  of  the  Venetian 
Republic.  Whether  the  old  Doges  were  quite 
the  saints  that  Ruskin  describes  them  to  have 
been  ;  whether  the  Republic  really  perished  because 
it  declined  from  religion  to  trade,  and  from  trade 
to  pleasure,  or  whether  the  rivalry  of  the  Turk 
had  not  something  to  do  with  it,  are  questions 
which  Mr.  Ruskin's  eloquence  cannot  settle.  He 
was  less  interested  in  historic  accuracy  than  in 
demonstrating  the  moral  government  of  the  world. 
He  was  brought  up  in  the  straitest  sect  of  Evangeli- 
calism, and  at  this  period  of  his  life  he  could  hardly 
describe  a  picture  of  the  Virgin  without  denying 
her  right  to  be  worshipped.  But  these  individual 
peculiarities  do  not  in  the  least  diminish  the  value 
of  what  Mr.  Ruskin  did  in  fostering  the  love  of 
beauty,  and  diffusing  the  knowledge  without 
which  it  is  mere  caprice.  In  his  old  age  he 
characteristically  grumbled  that  he  had  made  a 
large  number  of  entirely  foolish  persons  take  an 
interest  in  art.  He  did  not  induce  his  master  to 
take  an  interest  in  it.  "  Art  criticism "  was  to 


224   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i85i.  Carlyle  all  stuff,  mere  insistence  upon  "  the  Cor- 
reggiosity  of  Correggio."  There  is  no  evidence 
that  he  cared  for  any  picture,  any  statue,  or  any 
building.  It  is  strange  that  his  two  chief  pupils 
should  have  been  James  Anthony  Froude,  to 
whom  all  phases  of  culture  were  familiar,  and  John 
Ruskin. 

Siei  ^  great  aj"tist,  whom  no  one  appreciated  better 

than  Mr.  Ruskin,  began  his  career  in  1851,  when 
John  Tenniel  sent  his  first  drawings  to  Punch. 
At  that  time  the  chief  contributor  to  that  ex- 
cellent mirror  of  the  age  was  John  Leech,  a 
humourist  and  a  caricaturist  of  the  highest  order. 
But  for  half  a  century  Tenniel  continued  his 
genial  career  with  universal  applause,  and  without 
offending  any  one.  He  gave  dignity  to  caricature 
by  purging  it  of  all  ugly  and  sordid  elements.  In 

Maweady.  this  year  Macready  retired  from  the  stage,  to  the 
accompaniment  of  a  fine  sonnet  from  the  Laureate, 
and  was  succeeded,  so  far  as  one  actor  can  succeed 
another,  by  Charles  Kean.  In  1851  also  were 
published  two  books  which  have  absolutely  nothing 
in  common  except  the  English  language.  George 

George  Sorrow's  Lavengro  is  the  most  fascinating,  if  not 
the  most  popular,  of  all  his  strange,  wild,  humour- 
ous, egoistical,  poetical  writings.  Borrow  was 
probably,  as  he  says  himself,  "at  the  root  mad." 
But,  as  Plato  says,  if  madness  be  the  gift  of  God, 
it  may  be  the  source  of  the  greatest  blessings  to 
mankind.  There  have  been  many  saner  men 
whom  English  literature  could  better  afford  to 
lose  than  George  Borrow.  Herbert  Spencer's 

Herbert  Social  Statics,  the  earliest  of  his  books,  is  also  the 
simplest  and  the  most  intelligible.  Without  under- 
rating his  later  and  larger  works,  we  may  say  that 
nowhere  has  the  need  for  a  scientific  study  of 
social  phenomena  been  more  clearly  or  more  per- 
suasively argued.  Electric  telegraphy  made  great 


LITERATURE  OF  MID  CENTURY  225 

strides  in  1851.  Submarine  cables  were  laid  from 
Dover  to  Calais,  and  from  Dublin  to  Holyhead. 
One  of  the  first  pieces  of  news  to  come  through  the 
Anglo-French  cable  was  the  announcement  of  the 
coup  d'etat  The  Irish  cable,  besides  its  social 
and  commercial  importance,  has  materially  affected 
the  relations  between  Downing  Street  and  Dublin 
Castle.  Although  subsequent  arrangements  were 
afterwards  made,  the  Home  Secretary  became  for 
some  years,  by  means  of  telegraphic  communication, 
the  actual  Governor  of  Ireland.  The  age  was  one 
of  material  progress  rather  than  of  literary  insight. 
Literature,  new  literature,  had  to  struggle  for 
existence,  whereas  every  scientific  discovery  which 
promised  practical  results  was  received  with  en- 
thusiastic applause. 


VOL.  I  Q 


CHAPTER   XIV 

PALMERSTON'S  FALL 

1850.  IN  the  summer  of  1850,  after  the  great  debate  on 
foreign  policy  which  ended  so  triumphantly  for  the 
Court-  Government,  Lord  Palmerston  seemed  to  have 
completely  established  his  position.  But  it  was  in 
reality  undermined.  He  had  long  been  obnoxious 
to  the  Court,  with  whom  he  usually  differed  on 
questions  of  foreign  politics.  The  latest  point  of 
difference  was  the  ownership  of  Schleswig-Holstein. 
The  Queen  and  Prince  Albert,  or  rather  Prince 
Albert  and  the  Queen,  were  passionately  German. 
Palmerston  was  obstinately  Danish.  A  Minister 
who  is  on  good  terms  with  his  colleagues 
has  nothing  to  fear  from  the  Court.  But  Lord 
Palmerston  had  alienated  Lord  John  Russell  and 
the  Cabinet  by  his  off-hand,  imperious  manage- 
ment of  foreign  affairs.  He  often  took  steps  of 
great  importance  without  consulting  them,  or  even 
telling  them  what  he  proposed  to  do.  He  acted 
thus  in  the  case  of  the  Spanish  marriages,  in  the 
case  of  Sir  Henry  Bulwer,  and  in  the  case  of  the 
claims  upon  Greece,  which  had  just  brought  us 
within  measurable  distance  of  war  with  France. 
For  years  the  Queen  had  been  complaining  to 
Lord  John  without  result.  Now  at  last  she  in- 
duced him  to  send  Lord  Palmerston  a  communi- 
cation which  might  well  have  produced  a  vacancy 
in  the  Foreign  Office.  This  document,  dated  at 

226 


PALMERSTON'S  FALL  227 

Osborne  on  the  12th  of  August  1850,  is  a  State  1850. 
Paper  of  so  much  importance  that  it  must  be  given  SSJJj^J;?' 
in  full.  dum- 

"  With  reference  to  the  conversation  about  Lord 
Palmerston  which  the  Queen  had  with  Lord  John 
Russell  the  other  day,  and  Lord  Palmerston's  dis- 
avowal that  he  ever  intended  any  disrespect  to  her 
by  the  various  neglects  of  which  she  has  had  so 
long  and  so  often  to  complain,  she  thinks  it  right, 
in  order  to  prevent  any  mistake  for  the  future,  to 
explain  what  it  is  she  expects  from  the  Foreign 
Secretary. 

"  She  requires, 

"  1.  That  he  will  distinctly  state  what  he  pro- 
poses to  do  in  a  given  case,  in  order  that  the  Queen 
may  know  as  distinctly  to  what  she  has  given  her 
Royal  sanction. 

"  2.  Having  once  given  her  sanction  to  a  measure, 
that  it  be  not  arbitrarily  altered  or  modified  by 
the  Minister.  Such  an  act  she  must  consider  as 
failing  in  sincerity  towards  the  Crown,  and  justly 
to  be  visited  by  the  exercise  of  her  constitutional 
right  of  dismissing  that  Minister.  She  expects  to 
be  kept  informed  of  what  arises  between  him  and 
the  Foreign  Ministers  before  important  decisions 
are  taken,  based  upon  that  intercourse  ;  to  receive 
the  foreign  despatches  in  good  time,  and  to  have 
the  drafts  for  her  approval  sent  to  her  in  sufficient 
time  to  make  herself  acquainted  with  their  contents, 
before  they  must  be  sent  off.  The  Queen  thinks 
it  best  that  Lord  John  Russell  should  show  this 
letter  to  Lord  Palmerston."  * 

The  existence  of  this  Memorandum  was  kept  its  secrecy, 
profoundly  secret  at  the  time.     It  was  not  shown 
to  the  Cabinet.     Charles  Greville,  who  knew  most 
things,  had  no  suspicion  of  it.     There  is  no  refer- 
ence to  it  in  any  of  Palmerston's  private  letters 

1  Martin's  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,  vol.  ii.  pp.  305-306. 


228    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860,  published  by  Mr.  Ashley  and  written  before  1852. 
His  correspondence  during  the  autumn  of  1850  is 
rather  more  complacent  than  usual.  He  writes 
with  ill-concealed  satisfaction  about  the  death  of 
Peel,  and  even  condescends  to  rejoice  at  the  re- 
moval of  his  old  enemy  Louis  Philippe,  who  had 
become  perfectly  powerless  for  good  or  for  evil.1 
Yet,  according  to  Prince  Albert,  he  was  deeply 
affected.  On  the  14th  of  August,  the  day  of  the 
Albert  Council  for  proroguing  Parliament,  he  asked  for 
an  interview  with  the  Prince,  and  was  as  unlike 
himself  as  one  man  could  be  unlike  another.  "  He 
was  very  much  agitated,  shook,  and  had  tears  in  his 
eyes." 2  This  strange  picture  is  followed  by  a  long 
account  of  the  interview,  the  Prince's  own,  in  which 
Palmerston  is  made  to  say  that  the  Memorandum 
was  an  "  imputation  on  his  honour  as  a  gentleman." 
It  was  certainly  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  the  whole 
narrative,  though  doubtless  written  in  good  faith, 
strikes  one  as  highly  coloured.  At  the  end  His 
Royal  Highness  describes  how  he  tried  to  extract 
from  the  Foreign  Secretary  what  he  would  do  if 
the  difficulties  about  Schleswig-Holstein  became 
acute,  and  how  Palmerston,  by  talking  against 
time,  avoided  answering  such  a  preposterous  ques- 
tion. If  the  Prince  had  wanted  to  put  himself 
and  the  Queen  in  the  wrong,  he  could  have 
adopted  no  better  means  for  the  purpose  than 
addressing  hypothetical  inquiries  to  a  Secretary  of 
State,  whose  obvious  answer  was  "  I  will  deal  with 
that  case  when  it  arises." 

Although  the  letter  had  no  more  to  do  with 
Palmerston's  honour  as  a  gentleman  than  with  his 
faith  as  a  Christian,  it  was  undoubtedly  a  severe 
rebuff.  A  year  and  a  half  afterwards,  when  the 
whole  document,  except  the  introductory  paragraph, 

1  Ashley's  Life  of  Palmerston,  vol.  i.  p.  229. 
8  Martin's  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,  vol.  ii.  p.  307. 


PALMERSTON'S  FALL  229 

had  become   public,    Palmerston    described   it   as  1850. 
written  in  anger  by  a  lady  as  well  as  by  a  Sovereign.1 
But   it   never   could    have   reached    the    Foreign 
Secretary  except  through  the  Prime  Minister,  who  The  Prime 
made   himself  responsible   for   every  word  of  it.  reS6™ 
Now,  Lord  John  has  been  accused  of  many  things,  8i1 
but  his  worst  enemy  never  charged  him  with  being 
a  courtier.    It  is  unfair,  therefore,  to  represent  this 
as  a  mere  quarrel  between  Palmerston  and   the 
Queen,  or  Palmerston  and  the  Prince.     The  same 
answer  may  be  made  to  the  insinuation  that  this 
great   Englishman   was   driven   from   office   by  a 
foreign  intrigue.      That  idea  he  was   pleased  to 
encourage  himself.     But  there  is  not  a  particle  of 
evidence  for  it,  and  it  was  repudiated  with  un- 
questionable  sincerity   by   Lord   John.      At 


moment  Palmerston  behaved  with  unaccustomed  Linton? 
meekness.  He  wrote  immediately  to  the  Prime 
Minister  promising  compliance  with  the  Queen's 
wishes,  and  the  only  trace  of  asperity  he  showed 
was  the  substitution  of  the  formal  "  My  dear  Lord 
John  Russell"  for  the  familiar  "My  dear  John 
Russell."  2  He  did  not  even  hint  at  resignation. 
He  apologised  for  former  delays,  and  intimated 
that  to  avoid  them  in  the  future  he  might  have  to 
ask  for  a  couple  of  extra  clerks.  Palmerston  was 
a  curious  mixture  of  frankness  and  astuteness.  He 
talked  and  wrote  in  the  racy  vernacular  of  a  sports- 
man and  a  country  gentleman.  But  he  was  always 
revolving  schemes  in  his  head,  and  nobody  ever 
got  anything  out  of  him  which  he  did  not  want 
to  tell.  On  this  occasion  he  reckoned  on  the 
Memorandum  never  seeing  the  light,  and  he  may 
have  felt  that  he  was  in  the  wrong.  The  warmest 
admirers  of  his  policy  must  admit  that  he  had  no 
right  to  carry  it  out  against  the  wishes  of  the 

1  Ashley's  Life  of  Palmerston,  vol.  i.  p.  329. 
2  Martin's  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,  vol.  ii.  p.  306. 


230    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i860.  Prime  Minister  and  the  Cabinet,  by  keeping  them 
in  the  dark  until  it  was  too  late  for  them  to  inter- 
fere. That  he  did  not  intend  any  personal  dis- 
respect to  the  Queen  is  undoubtedly  true.  What 
he  intended  was  to  have  his  own  way. 
•me  assault  But  the  days  when,  as  Foreign  Secretary,  he 

on  Marshal  ijj  LI  J  JT 

Haynau.  could  do  as  he  pleased  were  at  an  end.  In  the 
autumn  of  1850  the  Austrian  Marshal  Haynau 
came  to  England,  and  visited  Barclay's  brewery. 
He  had  committed  great  cruelties  in  Hungary, 
and  it  was  credibly  reported  that  he  had  had 
women  flogged.  The  draymen  did  not  like  their 
visitor,  and  expressed  their  sentiments  in  the 
form  of  broomsticks.  The  Marshal  escaped 
under  the  protection  of  the  police.  Palmerston's 
sympathies  were  all  with  the  draymen.  Writ- 
ing to  Sir  George  Grey  on  the  1st  of  October 
1850,  he  says,  "  Instead  of  striking  him  .  .  .  they 
ought  to  have  tossed  him  in  a  blanket,  rolled 
him  in  the  kennel,  and  then  sent  him  home  in  a 
cab,  paying  his  fare  to  the  hotel."1  This  was  a 
private  letter,  though  it  was  written  by  one  Secre- 
tary of  State  to  another,  and  most  of  the  writer's 
countrymen  would  probably  have  agreed  with  it. 
But  being  in  that  frame  of  mind  Lord  Palmerston 
naturally  did  not  enjoy  the  task  of  expressing 
regret  to  the  Austrian  Chargd  d' Affaires,  Baron 
Roller,  which  he  was  required  to  do,  and  he  con- 
soled himself  by  the  introduction  of  a  paragraph 
reflecting  on  the  imprudence  of  unpopular  in- 
dividuals who  courted  public  opprobium.  Lord 
John  Russell  considered  this  paragraph  "  derogatory 
to  the  honour  of  the  nation,  as  if  no  one  could  be 
safe  in  this  country  who  was  obnoxious  to  public 
feeling."2  Finding  that  the  despatch  had  been 
sent  as  written,  he  insisted  on  its  withdrawal,  and 

1  Ashley's  Life  of  Palmerston,  vol.  i.  p.  240. 
2  Martin's  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,  vol.  ii.  p.  326. 


PALMERSTON'S  FALL  231 

the  substitution  of  another  without  the  offensive  isso. 
passage.  This  time  Palmerston  did  threaten  re- 
signation. But  on  Lord  John's  persistence,  he 
thought  better  of  it  and  submitted.  The  conduct 
of  these  draymen,  which  deeply  shocked  Prince 
Albert,  did  not  in  the  least  shock  the  public,  who 
highly  approved  of  their  frankness  and  vigour. 

Mr.  Gladstone's  famous  letter  to  Lord  Aber-  i85i. 
deen,  which  appeared  in  July  1851,  enabled  gJJSSg 
Palmerston  to  pay  off  one  of  the  old  scores letter 
that  he  never  forgot.  Mr.  Gladstone  had  spent 
the  winter  of  1850-51  at  Naples,  and  had  there 
been  an  eye-witness  of  the  abominable  cruelties 
practised  by  King  Ferdinand  upon  political 
prisoners,  especially  upon  Poerio,  a  man  of  high 
character  and  great  intellectual  power,  who  had 
been  guilty  of  no  worse  offence  than  opposition 
to  the  Government.  Poerio  was  chained  to  a 
murderer.  The  wretched  king  had  imprisoned 
all  the  Liberals  he  could  lay  his  hands  on ;  his 
victims  numbered  twenty  thousand,  and  many  of 
them  had  been  put  to  the  torture.  This  was  the 
sort  of  Government  against  which  renegade  Whigs 
like  Lord  Brougham  thought  it  a  crime  to  conspire. 
Lord  Aberdeen  was  much  of  the  same  opinion, 
and  did  all  he  could  to  postpone  the  publication 
of  the  pamphlet.  But  Mr.  Gladstone  was  not 
to  be  restrained,  and  he  found  in  Lord  Palmerston 
the  sympathy  which  had  failed  him  in  Lord  Aber- 
deen. Palmerston  was  always  sincerely  humane,  Palmer- 
and  he  hated  King  "  Bomba  "  for  his  cruelty.  He  omcili 
also  remembered  the  apology  to  that  monarch  of  it"01 
which  had  been  wrung  from  him  for  supplying 
the  Sicilian  insurgents  with  arms.  He  sent  a 
copy  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  pamphlet  to  every  British 
Minister  in  Europe,  with  instructions  that  he 
should  bring  it  under  the  notice  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  which  he  was  accredited.  He  also  paid  a 


232    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

i85i.  high  tribute  to  Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  which  was  an  important  incident  in  the 
long  and  chequered  connection  between  those  two 
statesmen.  But  King  Ferdinand  cared  for  none 
of  these  things.  He  did  not  believe  that  the 
Powers  of  Europe  would  interfere  with  him.  He 
did  believe  that  if  he  released  his  prisoners,  they 
would  dethrone  him.  So  he  kept  them  in  gaol. 
Mr.  Gladstone's  pamphlet,  and  Lord  Palmerston's 
adoption  of  it,  had  no  practical  and  immediate 
result.  But  between  them  they  had  given  a 
powerful  impetus  to  the  ultimate  liberation  of 
Italy. 

Kossuthin  In  this  particular  episode  there  was  nothing  to 
embroil  Lord  Palmerston  with  his  colleagues,  or 
with  the  Court.  But  the  arrival  at  Southampton 
in  October  1851  of  Louis  Kossuth  brought  on  a 
renewal  of  the  struggle.  Kossuth  had  been 
detained  by  the  Sultan  for  two  years,  greatly  to 
Palmerston's  disgust.  He  was  now  at  last  re- 
leased, and  he  expressed  a  desire  to  thank  Lord 
Palmerston  in  person.  Palmerston  agreed  to 
receive  him  at  Broadlands.  Meanwhile  Kossuth 
had  been  delivering  extremely  eloquent  speeches 
at  Southampton  and  Winchester  touching  the 
rights  of  the  people  and  the  iniquities  of  kings. 
He  was  greeted  with  immense  enthusiasm,  and  his 
mastery  of  the  English  language  astounded  all 
primer  who  heard  him.  But  Lord  John  Russell  was 
proved  informed  that  if  the  Foreign  Secretary  had  any 

reception  .          .  .    ,  ,         -i     j  i      IT 

of  him.  communication  with  a  man  who  led  a  rebellion 
against  the  Emperor,  the  Austrian  Ambassador, 
Count  Buol,  would  be  recalled.  The  Austrians 
had  better  have  been  told  to  mind  their  own 
business,  and  put  down  their  own  rebels  if  they 
could.  Lord  John,  however,  again  determined 
to  assert  his  authority,  and  remonstrated  against 
the  proposed  interview.  Lord  Palmerston  replied 


PALMERSTON'S  FALL  233 

with  some  heat  that  Lord  John  might  compose 
his  Cabinet  as  he  pleased,  but  that  he  himself 
should  receive  any  one  he  liked  in  his  own  house. 
Thereupon  a  Cabinet  was  summoned,  and  as  all 
the  Ministers  except  Lord  Lansdowne  were 
against  Palmerston,  he  gave  way.  A  few  days  S 
afterwards,  however,  he  admitted  to  the  Foreign 
Office  a  Radical  deputation  from  Finsbury  and  The  Radical 
Islington  to  congratulate  him  on  the  release  ofatthtl( 
Kossuth.  This  was  harmless  enough.  But  the 
addresses  described  the  Emperors  of  Russia  and 
Austria  as  despots,  tyrants,  and  odious  assassins. 
Against  the  use  of  this  language  Palmerston  pro- 
tested, and  it  is  hard  to  see  what  more  he  could 
have  done.  He  explained  to  the  Prime  Minister 
that  he  was  not  accustomed  to  deputations,  and 
did  not  expect  to  see  a  report  of  his  speech. 
But  Lord  Palmerston  had  in  truth  a  curious 
hankering  after  the  applause  of  Radicals.  He 
was  not  in  the  least  a  Radical  himself,  nor  a 
democrat,  but  an  aristocrat,  to  whom  Parliament- 
ary reform  after  1832  was  anathema.  But  he  had 
a  strong  popular  fibre,  and  though  not  in  ordinary 
circumstances  a  good  debater,  he  relied  through 
all  the  changing  scenes  of  life  upon  the  House  of 
Commons. 

Finsbury,  and  Islington,  and  Kossuth  would 
soon  have  been  forgotten  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
course  of  events  in  France,  where  the  President 
of  the  Republic  and  the  National  Assembly  were 
at  daggers  drawn.  Louis  Napoleon  had  been 
elected  for  four  years,  and  the  period  was  drawing 
to  a  close.  A  large  number  of  Deputies,  who 
might  well  have  been  a  majority,  were  in  favour 
of  legislating  against  a  second  term.  There  were 
other  grounds  of  dispute,  but  this  was  the  crucial 
one.  The  President  became  alarmed,  and  deter- 
mined to  be  beforehand  with  the  Assembly.  He 


234   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1851.  had  sworn  to  obey  the  Constitution.  He  broke  it. 
On  the  2nd  of  December  1851,  he  took  a  step  for 
which  there  is  happily  no  English  name.  He 

The  coup  perpetrated  the  coup  cT&at.  Before  daybreak  he 
had  arrested  his  principal  opponents,  among  whom 
were  General  Changarnier,  General  Cavaignac, 
and  M.  Thiers.  They  were  honest  Republicans. 
He  was  a  dishonest  one.  He  dissolved  the 
National  Assembly,  annulled  the  Council  of  State, 
and  declared  a  state  of  siege.  At  the  same  time 
he  issued  a  manifesto  to  the  army  in  the  name  of 
Napoleon,  and  an  appeal  to  the  people  against 
their  own  representatives.  He  asked  them  to 
elect  a  President  for  ten  years,  whose  Ministers 
should  be  responsible  to  him  alone.  He  promised 
a  Legislative  Body  chosen  by  universal  suffrage, 
and  a  Senate.  Two  hundred  and  thirty  deputies, 
not  being  favourable  to  his  designs,  were  im- 
prisoned. The  people  were  to  vote  from  the  14th 
to  the  21st  of  December.  But  the  army  was  to 
vote  before  the  people.  On  the  4th  of  December 

Th«          there    was    a   wholesale    massacre    of   inoffensive 

massacre          .    .  .  ,  111 

bayards  C1^izens    "7   *ne   troops   on  the  boulevards,   after 
'  which  resistance  ceased.      The   President's   chief 
accomplices   were   St.   Arnaud,   whose  real  name 
was  Le  Roy;  Fialin,  otherwise  Persigny ;  de  Morny, 
his   own   illegitimate   half  brother,    and   a   rascal 
called  de  Maupas,  a  prefect  of  police.     The  news 
of  this  infamous  crime  excited  the  greatest  indig- 
nation in  England,  and  the  press  almost  unani- 
mously condemned  it.     Lord  Palmerston  for  once 
did  not  understand  the  sentiments  of  his  country - 
paimer-      men.     On  the  3rd  of  December,  without  waiting 
approval  of  for  details,   and   without  consulting  any  one,  he 
d'!iZtup     expressed    orally   to    M.    Walewski,   the    French 
Ambassador,  his  approval  of  what  had  been  done. 
On    the   6th    of   December    he    wrote    to    Lord 
Normanby  in  the  name  of  the  Queen  the  formal 


PALMERSTON'S  FALL  235 

orders  of  the   Cabinet  not  to  alter  his  relations 

with  the  French  Government,  and  to  abstain  from  Neutrality 

Oi  tn6 

all  interference  with  the  internal  affairs  of  France.  Cabinet. 
Lord  Normanby,  a  bad  diplomatist,  communicated 
this  despatch  to  M.  Turgot,  the  French  Minister 
for  Foreign  Affairs,  though  he  had  not  been  in- 
structed to  do  so.  M.  Turgot  replied  that  he  knew 
all  about  it  from  M.  Walewski,  and  that  Lord 
Palmerston  entirely  approved  of  the  President's 
action.  Upon  Lord  Normanby's  remonstrating, 
and  complaining  of  the  position  in  which  he  had 
been  placed,  Palmerston  gave  in  writing  at  some 
length  his  reasons  for  the  opinion  that  either  the 
Assembly  or  the  President  must  go  down,  and 
that  he  preferred  the  President.  Meanwhile  Lord 
Normanby  had  written  to  Lord  John,  and  the 
Queen  insisted  upon  an  explanation,  which 
Palmerston  neglected  for  some  days  to  give.  On 
the  17th  of  December  Lord  John  wrote  to  Lord 
Palmerston  dismissing  him  from  the  Foreign  Palmer- 

st  oil's 

Office,  and  offering  him  the  Lord  Lieutenancy  of  dismissal. 
Ireland,  with  a  British  Peerage,  which  Palmerston 
naturally  refused  with  scorn.     On  the  22nd  there 
was  a  meeting  of  the  Cabinet,  which  Palmerston  unani- 
of  course  did  not  attend,  when  Lord  John's  action,  WP™™* 
though  it  had  been  taken  on  his  own  responsi-  cabinet. 
bility,  was  unanimously  approved.  Lord  Palmerston 
was  succeeded  by  Lord  Granville,  then  a  young 
man,  afterwards  for  many  years  the  representative 
of  the  Liberal  party  in  the  House  of  Lords.     Lord 
John  pressed  Macaulay  also  to  join  the  Cabinet. 
But  Macaulay  had  something  better  to  do. 

In  one  sense  Lord  John  Russell  chose  his 
ground  of  dismissal  well.  Louis  Napoleon  had 
established  what  was  really  a  military  despotism, 
with  which  Palmerston's  Radical  admirers  could 
not  possibly  sympathise.  On  the  other  hand  the 
coup  d'etat  was  completely  successful.  A  more 


236    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1851.  heinous  crime  has  seldom  been  committed.  It  has 
been  adequately,  though  not  more  than  adequately, 
stigmatised  by  Kinglake  in  English,  and  by  Victor 
Hugo  in  French.  But  black  as  it  was,  the  people 
of  France  condoned  it.  Making  all  allowance 
for  bribery  and  intimidation,  a  majority  of  seven 
millions  and  a  half  against  half  a  million  cannot 
be  explained  away.  England  no  doubt  was  bound 
to  preserve  a  strict  neutrality,  though  Palmerston 
was  an  apostle  of  intervention.  But  he  went  out 
of  his  way  to  applaud  a  perjured  usurper.  Lord 
Normanby  may  have  shown  his  hostility  too 
plainly,  and  Lord  Granville  soon  recalled  him. 
That  he  should  have  felt  it  is  creditable  to  him, 
as  the  opposite  feeling  was  discreditable  to  Palmer- 
ston. Lord  Russell,  writing  in  extreme  old  age, 
thought  that  at  this  great  crisis  he  had  been 
hasty  and  precipitate.  Most  people  who  knew 
what  was  going  on  at  the  time  thought  that  he 
had  been  too  slow,  and  his  justification  is  that 

Lord  John's  Palmerston  never  returned  to  the  Foreign  Office. 

justiflca  Palmerston's  foreign  policy  cannot  be  understood 
by  those  who  set  out  with  the  idea  that  he  con- 
fined himself  to  British  interests.  He  would 
himself  have  repudiated  any  such  doctrine,  as 
savouring  of  insular  isolation,  which  he  abhorred. 
He  was  a  great  European  diplomatist,  who  wanted 
England  to  have  a  finger  in  every  pie.  The 
Colonies  he  ignored,  and  with  India,  until  he 
became  Prime  Minister,  he  had  nothing  to  do. 
He  was  interested  in  the  affairs  of  every  European 
country,  and  always  ready  to  give  his  advice 
whether  it  was  asked  or  not.  He  was  never 
impartial.  He  always  took  a  side,  and  though 
he  hated  reform  at  home,  he  loved  revolution 
abroad.  It  was  not,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of 

6to™secos-  the  words,  a  British  interest  that  Austria  should 
be  turned  out  of  Lombardy  and  Venetia,  that 


PALMERSTON'S  FALL  237 

Denmark  should  have  Schleswig-Holstein,  that 
Spain  and  Portugal  should  be  constitutionally 
governed,  that  Hungary  should  be  free,  or  that 
France  should  be  enslaved.  Lord  Palmerston's 
worshippers  are  wont  to  say  that  he  had  higher 
than  merely  patriotic  aims,  that  he  supported  the 
cause  of  humanity  everywhere,  that  he  was  a  true 
citizen  of  the  world.  That  may  be  so  in  general, 
though  it  was  hardly  so  in  the  case  of  France. 
But  the  notion  that  he  limited  his  foreign  policy 
to  British  interests,  real  or  supposed,  is  purely 
mythical,  and  admits  of  easy  disproof. 

Although  Lord  Palmerston  was  not  invariably 
discreet,  even  in  speech,  and  still  more  often  let  successor. 
his  pen  run  away  with  him,  he  had  on  great 
occasions  the  instinct  of  behaviour.  "  Yesterday," 
says  Greville,  writing  on  the  27th  of  December 
1851,  "  Granville  was  with  Palmerston  for  three 
hours.  He  received  him  with  the  greatest  cordi- 
ality and  good  humour.  'Ah,  how  are  you, 
Granville  ?  Well,  you  have  got  a  very  interest- 
ing office,  but  you  will  find  it  very  laborious ; 
seven  or  eight  hours'  work  every  day  will  be 
necessary  for  the  current  business,  besides  the 
extraordinary  and  Parliamentary,  and  with  less 
than  that  you  will  fall  into  arrears.'  He  then 
entered  into  a  complete  history  of  our  diplomacy, 
gave  him  every  sort  of  information,  and  even 
advice ;  spoke  of  the  Court  without  bitterness, 
and  in  strong  terms  of  the  Queen's  sagacity ; 
ended  by  desiring  Granville  would  apply  to  him 
when  he  pleased  for  any  information  or  assistance 
he  could  give  him."  "  Very  wise,  gentlemanlike, 
becoming,  and  dignified,"  as  Greville  most  justly 
remarks.  But  it  was  not  with  Lord  Granville 
that  Palmerston  had  any  quarrel.  He  flew  at 
higher  game.  Lord  Granville,  though  not  an^rdGran- 

4.    •  I,     J  'J         Vl  iM.     J          £       ville's  good 

industrious   man,    had    considerable    aptitude    for  beginning. 


238    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1851.  business,  and  made  a  good  impression  at  the 
outset  upon  a  very  critical  department.  One  of 
his  first  duties  was  to  answer  a  despatch  from 
Count  Nesselrode  of  a  curious  and  unusual  kind. 
The  Emperor  Nicholas,  who  liked  Louis  Napoleon 
well  enough  as  the  enemy  of  freedom,  but 
thoroughly  despised  him  as  a  low-born  adventurer, 
anticipated  that  he  would  become  what  his  uncle 
had  been,  and  instructed  his  Chancellor  to  declare 
that  the  Powers  who  signed  the  Treaty  of  Vienna 
were  precluded  from  recognising  the  imperial  title 
of  any  Napoleon.  He  therefore  asked  that  if  the 
event  which  he  expected  occurred,  England  should 
communicate  with  him  before  taking  action  in  the 
matter.  To  this  suggestion  Lord  Granville  replied 
that,  while  desirous  of  co-operating  with  Russia, 
Her  Majesty's  Ministers  could  not  pledge  them- 
selves always  to  consult  the  Russian  Government 
before  acting  on  an  emergency.  Palmerston  would 
probably  have  said  the  same.  Indeed,  when  Lord 
Granville  drew  up  by  desire  of  Lord  John  for  the 
Queen's  inspection  an  account  of  what  the  foreign 
policy  of  this  country  ought  to  be,  he  could  only 
produce  "a  series  of  commonplaces,"  and  "there 
was  not  a  word  in  it  to  which  both  Palmerston  and 
Lord  Gran-  Aberdeen  might  not  subscribe."1  Lord  Granville 
Ausetda.  was  certainly  not  a  bit  more  disposed  than  Lord 
Palmerston  himself  to  accept  the  dictation  of 
Austria.  When  "  Rome  and  Modena  sent  notes, 
suggested  by  Austria,  through  Count  Buol,  de- 
manding the  extradition  of  their  refugees,  Lord 
Granville  met  them  by  throwing  them  after  him 
when  he  went  out  of  the  room." : 

-The  Louis  Napoleon,  when  he  heard  of  Palmerston's 

society/    fall,   is  reported  to  have  exclaimed  that  he   had 

lost  his  only  friend  in  England.     He  was  probably 

1  "  Greville  Memoirs,"  14th  January  1852. 
Malmesbury's  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister ,  vol.  i.  p.  320. 


2 


PALMERSTON'S  FALL  239 

suffering  from  the  superstitious  apprehension  which 
with  him  took  the  place  of  remorse.  At  any  rate 
he  was  mistaken.  He  was  destined  to  find  many 
English  friends  in  unexpected  quarters,  from  high- 
flying Tories  like  Malmesbury  to  thorough-going 
Radicals  like  Bright.  The  cynical  platitude  that 
nothing  succeeds  like  success  was  seldom  so  well 
exemplified  as  in  him.  With  very  few  exceptions, 
of  whom  Montalembert  and  Prosper  Merime'e  were 
perhaps  the  most  conspicuous,  all  that  was  intellect- 
ually or  morally  distinguished  in  France  stood  aloof 
from  him  through  his  eighteen  years  of  tyranny  and 
corruption.  But  many  Englishmen  of  the  highest 
character  forgot  in  the  splendour  of  the  Tuileries 
the  horrors  of  Vincennes,  and  some  even  blas- 
phemously hailed  him  as  the  Saviour  of  Society 
on  the  morrow  of  the  2nd  of  December.  As  for 
Lord  Palmerston,  his  hatred  of  the  Orleanists 
would  have  been  a  mania  in  a  mind  less  sound, 
and  the  confiscation  of  their  property  by  the 
"  Prince  President,"  which  was  simple  theft,  would 
have  reconciled  him  to  worse  atrocities  than  the 
coup  d'etat.  It  is  the  way  with  saviours  of  society 
to  begin  by  taking  other  men's  lives,  to  proceed 
by  taking  other  men's  goods,  and  to  reserve  the 
deprivation  of  other  men's  liberties  for  the  last. 
.  When  the  British  Parliament  met  on  the  3rd  1852. 
of  February  1852,  a  sorry  scene  was  enacted  in 
the  House  of  Lords.  Lord  Stanley,  who  ha 
become  Earl  of  Derby  on  the  death  of  his  father  Lord8- 
in  the  previous  June ;  Lord  Grey,  who  led  the 
House  in  the  absence  of  Lord  Lansdowne ;  and 
Lord  Brougham,  joined  in  an  attack  upon  the  free 
Press  of  a  free  country  for  denouncing  a  public 
criminal  as  he  deserved.  Only  Lord  Harrowby 
had  the  courage  to  stand  up  among  his  Peers  for 
the  liberties  of  England.  A  greater  than  Lord 
Harrowby  addressed  the  House  of  Lords  from  the 


240   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  outside.  Alfred  Tennyson  wrote  many  finer  poems 
Sr'8  than  "The  Third  of  February  1852."'  But  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  he  wrote  one  which  more 
accurately  reflected  the  best  public  opinion  of  the 
day.  Even  now  it  is  impossible  to  read  without 
some  feeling  of  national  pride  such  spirited  verses 
as  these  : 

It  was  our  ancient  privilege,  my  Lords, 

To  fling  whate'er  we  felt,  not  fearing,  into  words. 

It  might  be  safe  our  censure  to  withdraw ; 

And  yet,  my  Lords,  not  well :  there  is  a  higher  law. 

As  long  as  we  remain,  we  must  speak  free, 
Tho'  all  the  storm  of  Europe  on  us  break ; 

No  little  German  state  are  we, 

But  the  one  voice  in  Europe  :  we  must  speak  ; 

That  if  to-night  our  greatness  were  struck  dead, 

There  might  be  left  some  record  of  the  things  we  said. 

If  you  be  fearful,  then  must  we  be  bold. 

Our  Britain  cannot  salve  a  tyrant  o'er. 
Better  the  waste  Atlantic  rolTd 

On  her  and  us  and  ours  for  evermore. 
What !  have  we  fought  for  Freedom  from  our  prime, 
At  last  to  dodge  and  palter  with  a  public  crime  ? 

Meanwhile  an  interesting  drama  of  a  different  kind 
was  enacted  in  the  House  of  Commons.      Chal- 
lenged by  Sir  Benjamin  Hall,  the  Radical  Member 
for  Marylebone,  Lord  John  Russell  explained  the 
reasons    for    Lord    Palmerston's    dismissal.      He 
Lordjohn   made  a  long  and  able  speech  in  his  best  Parlia- 
primnton  mentary  style.     But  the  real  substance  of  it  was 
Houeof     the  Queen's  Memorandum,  the  operative  part  of 
commons.    which  he  read  ^  the  House      Although  he  had 

given  Lord  Palmerston  notice,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  he  was  justified  in  taking  this  course. 
Lord  Palmerston  had  not  attacked  him.  He  spoke 
before  Palmerston  rose.  Apart  from  the  grave 
Constitutional  objection  to  using  the  name  of  the 


PALMERSTON'S  FALL  241 

Sovereign  in  political  debate,  which  Lord  John  1S52. 
sought  to  overcome  by  taking,  as  he  could  not  help 
taking,  full  responsibility  for  the  Memorandum,  it 
was  hardly  generous  to  imply  that  an  old  friend 
and  colleague  had  been  wanting  in  loyalty  to  the 
Crown.  But  Lord  John  was  determined  to  crush 
his  rival,  and  for  the  moment  he  crushed  him. 
Palmerston's  reply  was  feeble  and  inconclusive.  No- 
body supported  him  except  Mr.  Monckton  Milnes, 
afterwards  Lord  Houghton,  and  Lord  Dudley 
Stuart,  a  politician  too  erratic  to  carry  much  weight 
with  the  House.  Even  Mr.  Disraeli,  the  coolest 
and  most  sagacious  of  observers,  was  so  far  carried 
away  by  that  atmosphere  of  the  moment  which 
obscures  the  Parliamentary  intellect  as  to  exclaim 
"There  was  a  Palmerston." l  But  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  never  knew  when  he  was  beaten,  and  there- 
fore was  never  really  beaten  at  all.  Lord  John 
soon  found  that  he  had  sawn  away  the  branch  on 
which  he  was  sitting  between  himself  and  the 
tree. 

The  first  measure  of  the  year  was  a  mild  Lord  John's 
Reform  Bill,  which  Lord  John  Russell  introduced 
on  the  9th  of  February  to  prove  that  he  was  no 
longer  "Finality  John."  He  proposed  to  lower 
the  occupation  franchise  in  counties  from  fifty 
pounds  to  twenty,  and  the  household  franchise 
in  boroughs  from  ten  pounds  to  five.  The  pro- 
perty qualification  for  county  members  was  to  be 
abolished,  and  the  Parliamentary  oaths  so  altered 
as  to  admit  Jews.  But  of  this  Bill  no  more  was 
heard.  Before  it  could  be  read  a  second  time,  or 
even  printed,  Lord  John  brought  in  the  Militia 
Bill,  which  at  once  superseded  it  in  public  interest.  BilL 
The  history  of  this  Bill  is  an  eloquent  commentary 
upon  the  true  nature  of  panics.  The  measure  was, 
though  it  did  not  look  it,  four  years  old,  being  the 

1  Ashley's  Life  of  Palmerston,  vol.  i.  p.  t331. 
VOL.  I  K 


242    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  offspring  of  the  Duke's  letter  to  Sir  John  Burgoyne, 
which  was  published  in  January  1848.  At  that 
time  the  Government  proposed  to  double  the 
income  tax,  and  to  strengthen  the  Militia.  But 
as  the  House  of  Commons,  at  the  instigation  of 
Lord  George  Bentinck  and  Mr.  Disraeli,  refused 
to  double  the  income  tax,  the  Militia  was  not 
strengthened.  Despite  the  French  Revolution, 
despite  the  general  crash  on  the  Continent,  nothing- 
was  done,  and  parsimony  succeeded  to  panic.  The 
military  Dictatorship  of  a  Napoleon  revived  the 
old  feelings  of  uneasiness,  and  the  Militia  Bill  made 
its  appearance.  The  great  Napoleon  was  never 
able  to  invade  England,  but  it  was  urged  that  the 
progress  of  steam  navigation  would  enable  the  little 
one  to  do  so.  Vainly  did  Mr.  Cobden  urge  that  to 
protect  the  country  from  invasion  was  the  business 
of  the  Navy.  The  general  sense  of  the  House,  and, 
it  must  be  added,  of  the  people  was  against  him. 
After  all,  this  panic  was  respectable  compared  with 
fear  of  the  Pope  and  his  English  Cardinal.  For 
a  Papal  Brief  was  waste  paper,  whereas  the 
French  army  was  a  tangible  thing.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  chance  had  now  come.  He  did  not  of  course 
oppose  the  principle  of  the  Bill.  He  was  always 
ready  to  increase  the  Army  Estimates.  But  he 
revived  an  old  question  upon  which  he  and  Lord 
John  had  agreed  to  differ  in  1848.  Lord  John 
was  for  a  local  militia,  of  which  the  members  were 
to  serve  only  in  their  respective  counties.  Lord 
Palmerston  preferred  a  national  force  for  service  in 
palmer-  any  part  of  England.  Without  waiting  to  see  the 
format.1  Bill,  he  moved  to  alter  the  preliminary  Resolution 
by  leaving  out  the  word  "local."  Lord  John,  in  a 
fit  of  temper,  declared  that  if  the  Government  were 
not  allowed  to  bring  in  their  own  Bill,  they  would 
leave  it  in  Lord  Palmerston's  hands.  Notwithstand- 
ing this  awful  threat,  the  amendment  was  carried  by 


PALMERSTON'S  FALL  243 

135  votes  against  126,  or  a  majority  of  9.  There- 1352. 
upon  the  Prime  Minister  did  actually  move  that  the 
Bill  should  be  prepared  and  brought  in  by  Mr.  Ber- 
nal l  and  Viscount  Palmerston.  Desisting,  however, 
from  this  absurdity,  he  adopted  the  more  dignified 
expedient  of  resigning  office.  So  Lord  Palmerston 
had,  as  he  wrote,  "  his  tit-for-tat  with  John  Russell," 
and  the  last  Whig  Government  was  at  an  end.  The 
division  on  the  Militia  Bill  was  an  accident.  The 
real  cause  of  Lord  John  Russell's  defeat  was  his 
dismissal  of  Lord  Palmerston.  Palmerston  had 
been  the  strongest  and  the  most  popular  man  in  his 
Administration.  His  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
was  as  such  contemptible.  His  Home  Secretary 
was  no  more  than  respectable.  Lord  Lansdowne's 
influence  was  rather  social  than  political.  To  the 
rest  of  his  colleagues  the  public  were  indifferent. 
Lord  Grey  had  a  very  high  reputation  in  the 
Colonial  Office,  and  behind  the  scenes,  but  out- 
side official  circles  he  was  unknown.  The  Cabinet 
was  too  aristocratic,  and  consisted  of  too  few 
families.  The  Privy  Seal  was  the  Prime  Minister's 
father-in-law.  The  Colonial  Secretary  and  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  were  brothers-in-law. 
The  Home  Secretary  and  the  Colonial  Secretary 
were  cousins.  The  only  untitled  members  of  it 
were  Mr.  Fox  Maule,  son  of  Lord  Panmure,  and 
Mr.  Labouchere,  both  afterwards  Peers.  The  last 
really  plebeian  element  disappeared  with  Lord 
Campbell.  The  Whigs  died  true  to  their  order, 
to  their  families,  and  to  themselves. 

1  The  Chairman  of  Committees. 


CHAPTER    XV 

THE    FIRST    GOVERNMENT    OF    LORD    DERBY 

1852.  AFTER  the  defeat  of  the  Whigs  on  the  20th  of 
Lord  Derby  February  the  Queen,  by  the  advice  of  Lord  John 
Minister.  R,lissell,  sent  for  the  Earl  of  Derby,  who  at  once 
accepted  office.  Neither  Sovereign  nor  Minister 
desired  to  see  the  reins  in  the  hands  of  Lord  Pal- 
merston,  who  had  actually  turned  out  the  Whigs. 
ms  offer  to  Lord  Derby  did  indeed  offer  Palmerston  a  seat 
n'  in  the  Cabinet,  having  obtained  the  Queen's  con- 
sent on  condition  that  the  patron  of  the  "  Prince 
President"  was  not  to  lead  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Even  Lord  Palmerston's  perfect  hand- 
writing could  not  at  that  time  reconcile  Her 
Majesty  to  the  receipt  of  a  daily  letter  from 
its  refusal  him  while  Parliament  was  sitting.  But  Lord 
Palmerston  put  a  speedy  end  to  the  negotiations. 
Nothing,  he  said,  would  induce  him  to  join  a 
Protectionist  Government,  and  Lord  Derby  did 
not  repudiate  the  description.  Lord  Palmerston 
cared  as  little  as  Mr.  Fox  for  the  principles  of  eco- 
nomic science,  and  in  1846  he  would  have  preferred 
a  fixed  duty  to  repeal.  But  as  a  practical  man  he 
regarded  Protection  as  dead,  and  as  a  sportsman  he 
played  the  game  according  to  the  rules.  The  dis- 
missal of  a  Minister  is  not  an  avowable  reason  for 
his  joining  the  other  side.  To  the  Peelites  Lord 
Derby  made  on  this  occasion  no  overtures  at 
alL  He  had  not  forgiven  them  for  their  previous 

244 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  245 

and  concerted  refusal  to  join  him.  No  doubt,  1852. 
too,  he  knew  that  an  overture  would  be  fruit- 
less. Sir  James  Graham  had  indeed  declined  to 
enter  the  Whig  Cabinet  in  the  previous  autumn 
as  President  of  the  Board  of  Control.  But  at 
the  same  time  Mr.  Frederick  Peel  took  office 
under  Lord  John  as  Under  -  Secretary  for  the 
Colonies. 

Although  Lord  Derby,  for  once,  did  not  hesi-  Lord 
tate,  his  position  was  most  embarrassing.  Just  aSLn. 
year  had  elapsed  since  he  protested  that  he  would 
not  march  through  Coventry,  or  to  Windsor,  with 
the  forcible  Feebles  of  the  Protectionist  host. 
Nothing  had  changed  in  the  meantime.  But  Lord 
Derby  persevered.  He  had  now  been  for  nearly 
eight  years  in  the  House  of  Lords.  It  does  not 
appear  that  he  ever  expressed  regret  for  having 
voluntarily  left  the  House  of  Commons  in  1844, 
when  he  was  "  called  up  in  his  father's  barony  "  as 
Lord  Stanley  of  Bickerstaffe.  Yet  it  is  difficult 
to  suppose  that  he  would  have  taken  such  a 
course  if  he  could  have  foreseen  the  split  of  1846, 
with  all  its  momentous  consequences.  In  the 
Lords  he  had  made  a  series  of  brilliant  speeches, 
and  had  demonstrated  the  practical  impotence  of 
his  own  order  by  carrying  a  futile  vote  of  censure 
on  the  Government.  He  was  in  the  prime  of 
life,  though  sometimes  disabled  by  gout,  and  in 
rhetorical  power  he  was  not  surpassed  by  any 
subject  of  the  Queen.  He  had  held  high  offices 
with  credit,  but  it  was  in  debate  that  he  had 
really  distinguished  himself.  His  colleagues  were 
entirely  without  official  experience,  except  Lord 
Lonsdale,  the  President  of  the  Council,  a  large- The" who? 
acred  nonentity,  and  Mr.  Herries,  the  President  Govern- 
of  the  Board  of  Control,  who  had  been  Chancellor  m 
of  the  Exchequer  a  quarter  of  a  century  before 
to  the  "transient,  embarrassed  phantom  of  Lord 


246   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  Goderich." l  By  far  the  most  conspicuous  among 
them  was  Benjamin  Disraeli,  who,  now  in  his 
forty -ninth  year,  became  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 

Thenew     chequer,  and  Leader  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

theeaneoi£e.  He  had  been  the  real,  though  not  the  nominal, 
head  of  the  Protectionist  party  in  the  House  ever 
since  the  resignation  of  Lord  George  Bentinck. 
He  was  regarded  as  the  most  brilliant  speaker  in 
the  popular  Chamber ;  he  had  literary  faculties  of 
no  common  order ;  and  it  is  easier  to  assume  that 
he  was  a  man  of  genius  than  to  account  for  him 
without  the  assumption.  But  he  had  neither  ad- 
ministrative knowledge,  nor  administrative  capacity, 
nor  the  character,  in  the  sense  of  reputation,  which 
has  often  supplied  the  place  of  both.  Perhaps  no 
man  had  ever  reached  so  high  a  position  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  yet  so  completely  failed  to  acquire  the 
confidence,  or  even  the  respect,  of  those  behind 
the  scenes  in  politics.  Then,  and  long  afterwards, 
Tories,  who  were  obliged  to  treat  him  with  civility, 
and  even  friendliness,  at  St.  Stephen's,  would 
rather  not  be  seen  walking  with  him  in  the  street. 
He  had  long  been  eager  for  office,  and  told  Lord 
Malmesbury  that  he  "felt  just  like  a  young  girl 
going  to  her  first  ball."2  "Now  we  have  got  a 
status,"  he  kept  on  saying.  Lord  Malmesbury 

J^.         probably  thought  that  he  had  one  before.     Qualifi- 

secretary.  cations  for  the  Foreign  Office,  where  he  succeeded 
Lord  Granville,  Lord  Malmesbury  had  none, 
except  that  he  had  edited  his  grandfather's 
despatches,  and  was  the  friend  of  Louis  Napoleon. 
But  the  first  recommendation  was  weak,  and  the 
second  was  weaker  than  the  first.  Of  the  other 

1  The  "Who?  Who?"  Government  derived  its  name  from  a  con- 
versation between  Lord  Derby  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  in  the 
Mouse  of  Lords.     As  the  new  Prime  Minister  repeated  one  by  one  the 
names  of  his  colleagues,  the  old  Duke,  who  was  deaf,  exclaimed  in  a 
perfectly  audible  tone,  "  Who  ?  Who  ?  " 

2  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister,  vol.  i.  p.  304. 


Cabinet  Ministers,  Mr.  Walpole,  the  Home  Secre- 1852. 
tary,  and  Sir  John  Pakington,  the  Colonial  Secre-  ^  «?* o 

111  1    •  mi          the  Callln 

tary,  were  respectable,  and  nothing  more.  The 
Lord  Chancellor,  Sir  Edward  Sugden,  Lord  St. 
Leonards,  who  had  twice  held  the  Great  Seal  of 
Ireland,  was  a  consummate  master  of  equitable 
jurisprudence,  and  in  spite  of  his  politics  a  legal 
reformer.  The  First  Commissioner  of  Works, 
Lord  John  Manners,  was  destined  to  survive  all 
his  colleagues,  and  all  his  opponents.  As  Duke 
of  Rutland,  he  was  one  of  the  pall-bearers  at  Mr. 
Gladstone's  funeral.  In  administration  he  made 
no  mark.  But  his  Parliamentary  speaking  was 
excellent,  and  he  was  held  by  both  parties  in  the 
highest  personal  esteem. 

Lord  Derby  characteristically  said  to  Lady 
Malmesbury  on  the  6th  of  March  1852,  "  I  have 
been  driving  a  team  of  young  horses  this  morn- 
ing ;  not  one  had  ever  been  in  harness  before,  and 
they  went  beautifully ;  not  one  kicked  amongst 
them."  Surprise  has  been  expressed  that  this 
raw  Ministry  did  not  more  conspicuously  break  The  func- 
down.  But  a  very  important  part  of  the  British  tiiTavii 
Constitution  is  concealed  from  the  public  eye. 
The  country  is  governed  in  ordinary  times  and 
for  every-day  purposes  by  the  permanent  members 
of  the  Civil  Service,  who  work  for  both  parties 
with  equal  loyalty,  and  in  some  cases  with  equal 
contempt.  The  Civil  Service  was  not  quite  the 
same  thing  in  1852  as  it  is  now.  The  system  of 
open  competition  had  not  been  introduced,  and 
there  was  more  scope  for  jobbery.  But  the 
principle  of  continuity  was  identical,  and  it  is  that 
which  enables  a  statesman  to  preside  at  once  over 
an  office  of  which  he  knows  nothing.  He  is  taught 
and  assisted,  though  of  course  he  cannot  be 
directly  controlled,  by  the  most  efficient  profession 
ever  organised  since  the  business  of  Government 


248    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  began.  The  civil  servants  of  the  Crown  are  men 
who  prefer  power  to  fame.  They  accept  moderate 
salaries  with  security  of  tenure,  dignity  of  employ- 
ment, and  the  assurance  of  a  reasonable  pension. 
The  highest  of  them  is  not  paid  more  than  half  as 
much  as  a  puisne  judge.  They  are  content  that 
others  should  get  the  credit  for  what  they  do,  and 
it  has  been  well  said  that  there  are  few  things  a 
man  cannot  achieve  if  he  is  philosophical  enough 
to  forego  the  credit. 

^u^  ^e  crucuty  of  his  Cabinet,  and  of  his 
colleagues  outside  the  Cabinet,  was  by  no  means 
the  most  serious  difficulty  of  the  new  Prime 
Minister.  There  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
Lord  Derby  was  all  through  his  life  a  sincere 
and  convinced  Protectionist.  He  was  totally 
unacquainted  with  political  economy,  and  once 
solemnly  assured  the  House  of  Lords  that  a  tax 
on  foreign  corn,  if  imposed  for  revenue,  would  not 
affect  the  price  of  corn  in  the  home  market.  The 
Cabinet  were,  for  the  most  part,  of  the  same  way 
of  thinking.1  Lord  Derby  had  committed  himself 
to  Protection  as  deeply  and  as  often  as  any  public 
man  was  ever  committed  to  anything.  On  the 
22nd  of  January  1846,  after  he  had  left  the 
Government  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  he  said  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  "I  had  placed  before  me  the 
choice  of  separating  from  my  colleagues,  for  whom, 
as  I  before  stated,  I  entertained  the  most  unfeigned 
esteem  and  regard,  and  with  whom  I  had  no  pre- 
vious difference,  or  to  sacrifice  my  own  individual 
opinion,  and  what  I  conceived  to  be  my  own 
personal  consistency  and  honour."  His  opinions 
were  unchanged  by  the  General  Election  of  1847, 
although  the  Protectionists  failed  to  obtain  a 

1  Lord  Lyndhurst,  who  had  been  offered,  and  had  refused,  a  place 
in  it,  was  jointly  responsible  for  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws.  But 
Lord  Lyndhurst's  principles  seldom  occurred  to  any  one. 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  249 

majority.  On  the  16th  of  June  1848  he  declared,  1352. 
"  I  have  in  no  degree  altered  or  modified  the  views 
I  have  before  expressed  in  this  House  with  regard 
to  the  propriety  and  policy  of  giving  Protection 
to  the  agricultural  industry  of  this  country."  In 
February  1849,  after  the  death  of  Lord  George 
Bentinck,  the  Protectionist  leader  returned  to  the 
subject.  "  I  hear  it  said,"  were  his  words,  "  that 
Free  Trade  has  been  adopted,  and  that  we  must 
proceed  in  that  course.  Vestigia  nulla  retrorsum. 
From  that  doctrine  I  dissent."  Again,  in  1850,  he 
assured  the  Peers  that  "  Parliament  would  have  to 
retrace  the  steps  they  had  taken,  and  revert  to  a 
sounder  and  wiser  policy."  In  April  1851,  after 
his  failure  to  form  a  Government,  Lord  Stanley 
spoke  in  Merchant  Taylors'  Hall,  and  said,  "My 
own  views  undoubtedly  are  that  there  is  no  course 
so  simple  and  effective  for  removing  agricultural 
distress,  and  at  the  same  time  for  returning  to  a 
sounder  system,  as  by  the  imposing  of  moderate 
duties  on  foreign  imports."  His  adherence  to 
Protection  was  the  reason  why  Mr.  Gladstone 
refused  to  join  him  in  1851,  and  why  Lord 
Palmerston  refused  to  join  him  in  1852.  But  if 
the  new  Prime  Minister  was  a  resolute  Protection- 
ist, the  new  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  was  not.  Disraeli-. 
So  far  from  having  any  belief  in  Protection,  he1* 
had  an  active  and  intelligent  belief  the  other  way. 
He  was  not  addicted  to  the  investigation  of 
statistics,  or  to  the  study  of  economic  science. 
But  there  is  conclusive  evidence  that  he  under- 
stood the  particular  question  of  Free  Trade,  not  a 
very  abstruse  or  recondite  one,  as  thoroughly  as 
Mr.  Cobden  himself.  In  the  year  1821  he  pub- 
lished a  curious  imitation  of  Gullivers  Travels, 
called  Popanilla,  written  in  his  very  worst  and 
most  affected  style,  but  containing  a  satire  on 
Protection  which  would  have  satisfied  Ebenezer 


250    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  Elliott  himself.  Whatever  may  have  been  Mr. 
Disraeli's  motives  for  attacking  Sir  Robert  Peel  in 
1846,  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  "  remainder 
biscuit,"  as  he  called  it,  of  political  economy.  He 
was  the  one  real  free  trader  in  Lord  Derby's  first 
Administration. 

Lord  Derby's  official  statement  in  the  House 
°f  Lords  on  the  27th  of  February  1852  was  a 
cautious,  trimming  performance,  which  provoked 
much  natural  criticism.  Lord  Derby  may  have 
been  "the  Rupert  of  debate."  But  his  political 
career  was  tortuous  and  devious,  suggestive  of 
anything  rather  than  a  cavalry  leader's  breakneck 
charge.  He  began  by  telling  the  House  of  Lords 
that  the  change  of  Government  was  a  complete 
surprise  to  him.  So  little  did  he  expect  it  that  he 
had  gone  to  pay  a  visit  in  the  country.  He  forgot 
that  Lord  Naas,  whom  he  had  just  made  Chief 
Secretary  for  Ireland,  moved  in  the  House  of 
Commons  a  vote  of  censure  on  Lord  Clarendon 
the  day  before  the  defeat  on  the  Militia  Bill  for 
bribing  the  venal  editor  of  a  disreputable  paper  in 
Dublin.  Lord  Clarendon  was  saved  by  a  masterly 
speech  from  Lord  John  Russell,  unsurpassed  as  a 
chivalrous  defence  of  an  absent  colleague  un- 
doubtedly in  the  wrong.  But  the  motion  was 
intended  to  destroy  the  Government.  Proceed- 
ing, Lord  Derby  declared  for  a  foreign  policy  of 
peace  and  non-intervention,  which  makes  it  the 
more  strange  that  he  should  have  invited  the 
assistance  of  Lord  Palmerston.  The  Navy,  he 
said,  had  never  been  more  effective,  and  the  Army 
was  satisfactory  in  everything  but  numbers.  To 
remove  that  defect,  a  Militia  Bill  would  be  intro- 
duced. Foreign  refugees  were  warned,  in  language 
which  might  have  been  dictated  by  Count  Buol, 
the  Austrian  Ambassador,  that  they  must  not 
abuse  the  hospitality  of  Great  Britain  on  pain 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  251 

of  being  denounced  to  their   own   Governments.  1852. 
A  Ministry  without  a  majority  should,   said  the 
Premier,  confine  itself  chiefly  to  legal  and   social 
reforms.     Parliamentary  reform  would  be  dropped, 
and  education  was  declared  to  be  the  business  of 
the  clergy.     On  the  crucial  subject  of  Protection,  The  need 
Lord  Derby  was  ambiguous.     He  did  indeed  com-  general 
pare  the  American  tariff  favourably  with  our  own, 
and  express  his  personal  opinion  in  favour  of  a 
duty  on  foreign  corn.     But  he  added  that  no  such 
duty  could  be  imposed  without  taking  the  sense  of 
the  country  at  a  general  election.     Lord  Aberdeen, 
while  cordially  assenting  to  Lord  Derby's  foreign 
policy,  protested  with  equal  warmth  against  the 
suggested  revival  of  the  Corn  Laws.     This  double 
declaration   is   most   important   in    view   of  what 
subsequently  occurred.     Finally,  being  challenged 
by  Lord  Beaumont  to  say  what  the  Government 
intended  to  do,  Lord  Derby  replied  that  they  pro- 
posed to  erect  a  barrier  against  democratic  influence,  stemming 
"  There  is  nothing,'1  said  the  greatest  of  Conserva-  democrat. 
tives,  "  so  mischievous  in  the  people's  choice  as  the 
existence  of  any  human  power  capable  of  resist- 
ing it." l 

Lord  Derby  had  in  February  1852  two  honest  Lord 
and  straightforward  courses  open  to  him.  The  earn*. w< 
more  honest,  and  the  more  straightforward,  would 
have  been  to  dissolve  Parliament  at  once,  and 
appeal  to  the  country  for  a  majority  in  favour  of 
Protection.  He  would  almost  certainly  have  been 
beaten,  but  there  would  have  been  no  humiliation 
in  his  defeat.  As  he  shrank  from  taking  the  plunge, 
he  should  have  frankly  acknowledged  that  the 
revival  of  Protection  was  impossible,  and  have 
accepted  the  Act  of  1846,  as  Peel  accepted  the  Act 
of  1832.  Unfortunately  for  himself,  and  for  his 
fame,  he  took  neither  the  one  line  nor  the  other. 

1  Burke's  Letter  on  the  Duration  of  Parliaments,  13th  April  1780. 


252   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  He  remained  in  office,  and  evaded  the  question  of 
Free  Trade.  It  has  been  urged  that  Lord  Derby  had 
as  much  right  as  Sir  Robert  Peel  to  change  his  mind. 
Certainly  he  had.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that  he 
did  change  his  mind,  and  a  good  deal  of  evidence 
that  he  did  not.  Peel  had  nothing  to  gain  by  his  con- 
version. He  was  turned  out  almost  immediately  after 
it.  Lord  Derby  had  everything  to  gain  by  dropping 
Revival  of  Protection,  as  we  may  be  sure  that  Mr.  Disraeli  was 
Law  not  slow  to  remind  him.  Meanwhile,  the  Anti-Corn 


Law  League  was.revived  at  Manchester,  and  twenty- 
seven  thousand  pounds  were  subscribed  in  the  room. 
Circumstances  were  at  first  highly  favourable  to 
the  new  Government.     On  the  29th  of  March  Mr. 
Walpole,  the  Home  Secretary,  introduced  the  new 
The  new     Militia   Bill,   which    provided  for    raising    eighty 

MilitiaBill.    .,  .,...  \  £         jfL. 

thousand  militiamen  in  two  years  for  live  years 
service.  It  was  to  be,  as  Lord  Palmerston  had 
proposed,  a  national,  not  a  local,  force,  and  there 
was  to  be  no  ballot  unless  voluntary  enlistment 
failed.  The  second  reading  of  this  Bill  was  taken 
on  the  23rd  of  April,  when  Lord  John  Russell, 
separating  himself  from  many  of  his  colleagues, 
i^ijohn's  committed  the  great  mistake  of  opposing  it. 
Cobden  and  the  Radicals  were  quite  consistent  in 
voting  against  this  Bill,  as  they  had  voted  against 
Lord  John's.  But  Lord  John's  opposition  appeared 
to  be  purely  factious,  and  it  seriously  diminished 
his  authority  as  a  leader.  Mr.  Walpole,  on  the 
other  hand,  incurred  some  good-humoured  ridicule 
by  proposing  a  clause,  afterwards  dropped,  for  giving 
every  militiaman  a  vote  after  two  years'  training. 
"  Only  think,"  said  Macaulay,  "  of  measuring  a  man 
for  the  franchise,  .  .  .  the  Derby-  Walpole  quali- 
fications to  be  youth,  ignorance,  thoughtlessness, 
a  roving  disposition,  and  five  feet  two."1  Lord 

1  Macaulay's  Works,  vol.  viii.  p.  424.    Speech  made  on  his  re-election 
for  Edinburgh. 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  253 

Palmers  ton,  of  course,  made  the  most  of  Lord  1352. 
John's  inconsistency,  and  the  Government  had  an 
unexpected  majority  of  196.  In  the  House  of  Lords 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  strongly  supported  the 
Bill,  and  it  became  law.  That  the  fears  of  French  The  fear  oi 
invasion  were  a  groundless  panic,  Mr.  Cobden  was  i 
quite  right  in  maintaining.  On  this  subject  there 
is  a  very  good  letter  from  Lord  Malmesbury  to 
Lord  Derby,  printed  in  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister.1 
"Louis  Napoleon,"  says  Lord  Malmesbury,  "has 
no  natural  dislike  to  the  English.  Ever  since  I 
knew  him,  he  courted  their  society,  and  imitated 
their  habits.  Twenty  years  ago,  when  he  could  not 
have  been  playing  a  part  with  me,  who  had  even 
less  chance  of  being  Foreign  Secretary  than  he  of 
being  Emperor,  he  always  said  that  his  uncle's 
great  mistake  was  not  being  friends  with  England." 
As  for  the  Bill,  it  did  neither  harm  nor  good,  and 
the  whole  controversy  was  a  storm  in  a  teacup.  A 
far  better  plan,  providing  for  a  permanent  reserve, 
was  drawn  up  by  Prince  Albert,  and  shown  to  Lord 
Derby,  who  hastily  put  it  in  his  pocket,  lest  it  should 
interfere  with  his  own  measure.  The  formation  of 
a  reserve  was  left  for  wiser  men  in  better  times. 

Sir  John  Pakington  was  even  more  successful 
with  New  Zealand  than  Mr.  Walpole  was  with  the  New1 
Militia.  He  took  up  and  passed,  with  some  altera- 
tions, the  Bill  left  by  his  predecessor,  for  giving  a 
Constitution  to  that  colony.  The  Whigs  had 
intended  to  do  this  in  1848.  But  in  consequence 
of  difficulties  with  the  Maories,  the  educated  and 
intelligent  natives  of  the  country,  it  had  been 
thought  necessary  to  postpone  the  grant  for  five 
years.  Sir  George  Grey,  the  prince  of  Colonial 
Governors,2  now  reported  that  the  experiment  could 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  356. 

2  Sir  George  was  in  no  way  related  to  the  Home  Secretary  of  the 
same  name. 


254   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  safely  be  tried,  and  New  Zealand  was  put  on  the 
same  footing  as  Australia.  The  islands  were  divided 
into  seven  provinces,  each  with  a  legislature,  and 
with  a  superintendent,  to  be  elected  by  the  people, 
and  not,  as  first  proposed,  appointed  by  the 
Governor.  The  Colonial  Legislature  was  to  con- 
sist of  two  Chambers.  Lord  John  Russell  sup- 
ported the  Bill.  The  only  opposition  came  from 
Sir  William  Molesworth,  who  objected  to  the 
provincial  Legislatures,  on  the  ground  that  New 
Zealand  was  as  compact  and  homogeneous  as 
Great  Britain. 

This  year  a  difficulty  with  the  United  States 
about  Canadian  and  Newfoundland  Fisheries  nearly 
led  to  war.  Daniel  Webster,  the  celebrated 
American  orator,  inflamed  the  passions  of  his 
countrymen,  and  Sir  John  Pakington's  inex- 
perience led  him  to  put  forward  unfounded  claims. 
But  Webster  suddenly  died,  and  after  his  death 
the  matter  was  peacefully  settled  by  President 
Fillmore.  It  produced  a  curious  outburst  of 

Disraelis     petulance  from  Mr.  Disraeli,  who  wrote  to  Lord 

IE1  Malmesbury  on  the  13th  of  August  1852,  "The 
Fisheries  affair  is  a  bad  business.  Pakington's 
circular  is  not  written  with  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  circumstances.  He  is  out  of  his  depth,  more 
than  three  marine  miles  from  Shore.  These 
wretched  colonies  will  all  be  independent  too  in  a 
few  years,  and  are  a  millstone  round  our  necks." 

rise  policy        The   policy    of   the    Opposition    was    twofold. 

opposition.  They  demanded,  first,  a  clear  declaration  in  favour 
of  Free  Trade,  or  against  it,  and,  secondly,  an  im- 
mediate appeal  to  the  constituent  bodies,  not  then 
called  constituencies.  When,  therefore,  on  the 
10th  of  May,  Mr.  Disraeli  proposed  that  the  seats 

1  Mr.  Disraeli  lived  to  change  his  opinion  upon  the  value  of  Colonies. 
Lord  Malmesbury  deliberately  published  the  letter  thirty-two  years 
after  it  was  written,  and  three  years  after  his  old  colleague's  death. 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  255 

taken  from  the  corrupt  boroughs  of  Sudburgh  and  1352. 
St.  Albans  should  be  conferred  upon  South  Lanca- 
shire, and  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  Mr. 
Gladstone  objected.  The  proposition  in  itself  was 
reasonable  enough.  But  Mr.  Gladstone's  argu- 
ment was  that  a  Government  on  sufferance  had 
only  the  right  to  deal  with  necessary  business, 
and  he  carried  his  point  by  a  majority  of  86. 
The  Government,  however,  did  not  resign  or  dis- 
solve, and  two  days  afterwards  they  defeated  the 
Opposition.  Mr.  Milner  Gibson,  a  cynic  rather 
than  an  enthusiast,  but  a  thoroughly  consistent 
Radical,  brought  forward  his  regular  motion  for  the 
repeal  of  the  "taxes  on  knowledge."  These  were  The  taxes 
the  paper  duty,  the  duty  on  advertisements,  and  i°endge.°w 
the  newspaper  stamp.  Between  them  they  made  a 
cheap  Press  almost  impossible,  and  gave  a  practical 
monopoly  to  the  Times,  then  at  the  height  of  its 
power  under  the  able  management  of  Mr.  Delane 
and  Mr.  Mowbray  Morris.  Mr.  Disraeli  wisely 
abstained  from  arguing  the  question  on  its  merits. 
Indeed,  he  admitted  that  the  taxes  were  in  them- 
selves bad.  He  simply  pleaded  that -as  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  he  could  not  spare  a  million  and 
a  half,  and  the  plea  sufficed.  A  few  days  before  April  so. 
this,  he  had  introduced  his  Budget.  In  the  v*™Ks 
Budget  itself  there  was  nothing  remarkable.  He  Budget. 
simply  proposed  to  renew  the  expiring  income  tax 
for  a  year,  as  otherwise  he  would  have  a  deficit 
of  two  millions,  and  Mr.  Hume's  committee  had 
not  yet  reported.  But  the  speech  was  a  surprise  to 
friend  and  foe.  From  a  serious  point  of  view  it 
was  one  of  the  ablest  he  ever  delivered,  and  it  was 
a  complete  vindication  of  Free  Trade.  By  an  array 
of  facts  and  figures  which  could  not  be  answered  or 
displaced  the  most  brilliant  antagonist  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel  proved  to  the  House  of  Commons,  in  which 
they  had  fought  so  many  battles,  that  the  cheap- 


256   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1862.  ness  and  abundance  resulting  from  the  repeal  of 
Protective  duties  had  stimulated  the  general  pro- 
sperity of  the  nation,  and  done  invaluable  good  to 
the  working  classes  in  particular.  Loud  and  frequent 
was  the  applause  from  the  benches  of  the  Peelites, 
and  of  the  Whigs,  while  the  Protectionists  listened 
in  gloomy  silence.1 

xhecase  Lord  Malmesbury  did  not  increase  the  popu- 
Mathers.  larity  of  the  Government  by  his  conduct  of  Mr. 
Mather's  case,  which  was  sadly  bungled.  The  cause 
of  this  dispute  arose  before  the  Tories  came  into 
office,  but  they  had  to  settle  it.  Mr.  Mather,  a 
young  Englishmen  staying  in  Florence,  got  in  the 
way  of  an  Austrian  regiment,  headed  by  its  band. 
An  Austrian  officer  cut  him  down  with  his  sword, 
inflicting  a  serious  wound.  The  officer  was  tried 
by  court-martial,  and  acquitted.  Mr.  Mather's 
father  demanded  through  the  British  Government 
compensation  to  the  amount  of  five  thousand 
pounds.  The  Austrian  troops  had  no  legitimate 
business  in  Florence  at  all.  They  were  there  to 
prop  up  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany  on  his  pinch- 
beck throne.  Lord  Derby  and  Mr.  Disraeli  were 
always  rather  Austrian  than  Italian  in  their  sym- 
pathies. But  Lord  Malmesbury  was  anxious  not 
to  recognise  the  right  of  the  Austrian  troops  in 
Florence,  and  directed  Mr.  Scarlett,  who  had  tem- 
porary charge  of  the  Florentine  Legation  in  the 
absence  of  Sir  Henry  Bulwer,  to  obtain  redress 
from  the  Tuscan  Government.  Five  hundred 
pounds  was  the  sum  for  which  Lord  Malmesbury 
stipulated.  He  was,  however,  a  novice  in  diplomacy, 

1  Lord  Derby  did  not  like  it  at  all.  "  Disraeli's  speech  on  intro- 
ducing his  Budget,"  says  Lord  Malmeabury  (Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  332), 
"has  produced  a  bad  effect  on  the  country,  for  the  farmers,  though 
reconciled  to  giving  up  Protection  [this  was  hardly  so],  expected  some 
relief  in  other  ways,  and  he  does  not  give  a  hint  at  any  measure  for 
their  advantage.  I  fear  this  will  tell  at  the  next  election.  I  expect 
we  shall  be  turned  out  before  December."  This  was  not  a  bad 
prophecy,  as  prophecies  go. 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  257 

and  he  committed  the  serious  blunder  of  pressing  1352. 
Mr.  Scarlett  to  arrange  the  matter  before  Sir  Henry 
Bulwer  returned.  In  his  private  diary  he  com- 
plains that  the  affair  gave  him  a  great  deal  of 
trouble,  and  his  real  opinion  seems  to  have  been 
that  Mr.  Mather  should  have  called  his  assailant 
out.  Harassed  and  worried,  Mr.  Scarlett  accepted 
two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  from  the  Grand  Duke, 
not  as  a  right,  but  as  an  act  of  pure  grace  and 
favour.  He  had  to  be  disavowed,  and  Sir  Henry 
Bulwer,  when  he  came  back,  succeeded  in  obtaining 
reparation.  To  have  sued  an  Austrian  officer  in  a 
Tuscan  Court  would  have  been  a  farce.  Public 
opinion  was  inclined  to  hold  that  the  claim  should 
have  been  pressed  directly  upon  Austria,  and  Lord 
Malmesbury  was  depicted  by  Punch  in  the  act  of 
blacking  the  Emperor's  boots.  The  opportunity 
was  not  lost  upon  Lord  Palmerston,  who  made  the 
best  of  it  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Lord 
Malmesbury  meant  well,  and  he  was  not  wanting 
in  firmness.  But,  for  a  man  of  the  world,  he  was 
strangely  awkward  and  maladroit. 

The  spring  of  1852  was  saddened  by  a  disaster  The  io» 

,  .    ,  .&  /?    .  i  j  •      of  the 

which  remains  one  or  the  proudest  memories  in 
the  annals  of  the  British  Army.  Her  Majesty's 
troopship  Birkenhead  sailed  from  Queenstown  on 
the  7th  of  January  with  reinforcements  for  the 
Kaffir  War.  She  had  on  board  nineteen  officers, 
and  nearly  five  hundred  men,  besides  the  crew, 
with  women  and  children.  On  the  23rd  of  Feb- 
ruary, such  was  the  rate  of  progress  in  those  days, 
the  Birkenhead  arrived  at  Simon's  Bay,  where 
some  of  the  women  were  landed.  At  six  o'clock 
in  the  morning  of  the  25th  she  left  Simon's  Town 
for  Algoa  Bay.  Between  two  and  three  the  next 
morning  she  struck  on  a  rock  and  sank  in  a  very 
short  time.  Some  of  the  soldiers  were  drowned 
in  their  berths.  The  survivors  mustered  on  deck, 
VOL.  i  s 


258   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  and  awaited  orders.  The  women  and  children  were 
placed  in  the  cutter,  and  their  lives  were  saved. 
According  to  the  testimony  of  the  captain,  "  there 
was  not  a  murmur  or  a  cry  among  them  until  the 
vessel  made  her  final  plunge.  All  the  officers  re- 
ceived their  orders  and  had  them  carried  out,  as  if  the 
men  were  embarking  instead  of  going  to  the  bottom. 
There  was  only  this  difference,  that  I  never  saw 
any  embarkation  conducted  with  so  little  noise  and 
confusion."  The  soldiers  went  down  with  the  ship, 
and  two -thirds  of  them,  including  then*  colonel, 
were  drowned.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  referred 
to  this  splendid  catastrophe  at  the  last  dinner  of  the 
Royal  Academy  he  lived  to  attend.  It  was  observed 
that  he  said  nothing  about  the  courage  of  the  men, 
which  he  seemed  to  take  for  granted,  but  dwelt 
exclusively  upon  their  discipline  and  subordination. 
Those  qualities  have  seldom  indeed  been  put  to  so 
severe  a  test.  But 

There  rose  no  murmur  from  the  ranks,  no  thought, 
By  shameful  strength,  unhonoured  life  to  seek  ; 

Our  post  to  quit  we  were  not  trained,  nor  taught 
To  trample  down  the  weak.1 

The  General  The  Parliament  of  1847  was  dissolved  on  the  1st 
of  July  1852.  Its  last  session  had  not  been  barren, 
for  some  legal  reforms  of  great  utility  were  carried 
out  by  the  Chancellor,  Lord  St.  Leonards.2  Those 
over-paid  and  under-worked  officers  of  the  law,  the 
Masters  in  Chancery,  were  abolished.  The  juris- 
diction of  County  Courts  was  further  extended. 
The  Common  Law  Procedure  Act  put  an  end  to 
the  iniquitous  old  system  of  special  pleading,  of 
which  the  records  are  written  in  Meeson  and  Welsby. 
There  are  rational  lawyers  who  still  think  that  the 
system  established  by  the  Common  Law  Procedure 

1  Sir  Francis  Doyle. 

*  One  effect  of  these  reforms  was  to  destroy  those  time-honoured 
"  legal  persons,"  John  Doe  and  Richard  Roe. 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  259 

Acts,  though  it  only  lasted  for  about  twenty  1852. 
years,  was  the  best  and  simplest  that  has  ever  been 
devised.  The  first  effective  measure  against  corrupt 
practices  had  been  introduced  by  Lord  John  Russell 
before  he  left  office.  He  continued  to  take  charge 
of  it  in  Opposition,  and  successfully  carried  it  into 
law.  But  reforms  of  this  kind,  in  which  both 
parties  concur,  have  little  influence  at  a  General 
Election.  Much  was  made  on  the  hustings  of  Lord 
Malmesbury's  failure  to  protect  British  subjects 
abroad  after  the  Palmerstonian  fashion.  But  the 
chief  subject  was  Protection  of  another  kind,  and 
here  the  Government  was  more  elusive  than  Proteus. 
The  Prime  Minister,  being  a  Peer,  was  muzzled  by 
the  Constitution.  The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
said  as  little  about  the  subject  as  he  decently 
could.  It  was  his  deliberate  judgment  that  the 
farmers  threw  away  their  last  chance  at  the  General 
Election  of  1847.  Other  Ministers  were  less  dis- 
creet. The  most  thorough-going  Protectionists 
among  them  were  Mr.  Herries,  the  President  of  the  ™ 
Board  of  Control ;  Mr.  Christopher,  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Duchy;  and  Sir  Fitzroy  Kelly,  the  Solicitor- 
General,  who  forgot  that  he  had  held  the  same 
office  under  Sir  Robert  Peel.  But  as  a  general  rule  the 
Tory  candidates  for  counties  were  Protectionists,  and 
the  Tory  candidates  for  boroughs  were  free  traders.  Town  and 
Mr.  Christopher,  who  sat  for  Lincolnshire,  declared 
that  he  trusted  Lord  Derby,  and  that  Lord  Derby 
would  never  abandon  Protection.  Lord  Derby 
abandoned  Protection,  but  Mr.  Christopher  did  not 
abandon  Lord  Derby.  At  this  election  the  Tories 
gained  several  seats,  but,  as  Lord  Derby  had  antici- 
pated in  the  House  of  Lords,  there  was  no  Pro- 
tectionist majority.  In  Great  Britain  Ministerialists 
and  Opposition  were  almost  exactly  equal,  though 
all  supporters  of  the  Government  were  not  opposed 
to  Free  Trade.  The  balance  was  held  by  Ireland, 


260   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  where  there  had  been  some  rioting,  and,  thanks  to 
S>tinrish  ^ne  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Act,  much  priestly  intimi- 
vote-  dation.  No  leading  Protectionist  or  Conservative 
lost  his  seat,  while  Sir  George  Grey,  Mr.  Card- 
well,  and  Mr.  Cornewall  Lewis  were  defeated  by 
Macauiay's  Ministerial  candidates.  The  most  notable  feature 
ion'  of  the  election,  however,  was  the  return  of  Macaulay 
at  the  head  of  the  poll  for  Edinburgh.  His 
triumph  was  the  more  conspicuous  because  he  had 
refused  to  be  a  candidate,  or  to  appear  in  the  city, 
and  had  even  declined  to  answer  the  question  how 
he  would  vote  on  the  subject  of  Maynooth.1  His 
fame  had  become  a  national  possession,  and  he 
was  elected  as  a  great  Englishman.  Unfortunately 
the  renewal  of  his  relations  with  Edinburgh  was 
coincident  with  the  sudden  failure  of  his  health, 
and  he  was  never  again  able  to  take  an  active 
part  in  public  affairs.  Lord  Palmerston  was  of 
course  re-elected  for  Tiverton  after  the  most 
amusing  of  his  many  verbal  encounters  with  Row- 
cliffe  the  butcher,  whose  presence  at  Tiverton 
meetings  was  as  much  part  of  the  show  as  Lord 
Palmerston's  own.2 

Death  of  The  great  event  of  the  period  between  the 
election  and  the  meeting  of  the  New  Parlia- 
ment was  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  death,  which 
occurred  at  Walmer  Castle  on  the  14th  of 
September,  in  his  eighty-fourth  year.  His  funeral 
in  St.  Paul's,  attended  by  both  Houses,  was  not 
held  till  the  18th  of  November.  The  Poet 
Laureate  celebrated  it  in  a  magnificent  poem, 

1  It  was  his  vote  on  Maynooth  which  lost  him  his  seat  in  1847. 

2  Palmerston  could  not  be  idle,  or  let  the  affairs  of  Europe  alone. 
On  the  10th  of  May,  though  out  of  office,  and  a  mere  private  individual, 
he  drew  up  in  very  choice  Italian  for  Count  Aquila,  the  Neapolitan 
Minister  in  London,  a  Memorandum  strongly  recommending  the  King 
of  Naples  to  grant  a  general  amnesty  of  political  prisoners  on  pain  of 
forfeiting  the  British  alliance.     The  advice  was  not  taken,  and  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  King  Ferdinand  ever  saw  the  paper.     He  would 
have  paid  very  little  attention  to  it  if  he  had. 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  261 

not  written  to  order,  but  the  spontaneous  ex- 1352. 
pression  of  his  own  feelings.  Lord  Derby,  in  a  NOV.  15. 
very  beautiful  speech,  described  the  patience  with 
which  the  Duke,  despite  his  deafness,  listened 
attentively  to  the  remarks  of  the  youngest  Peer, 
and,  striking  a  higher  note,  said  with  perfect  truth 
that  they  had  buried  in  their  illustrious  hero  the 
man  among  them  who  had  the  greatest  horror  of 
war.  Lord  John  Russell  had  already  paid  his  tribute 
at  Stirling  in  the  most  eloquent  of  all  his  orations.  sept  n. 
In  the  House  of  Commons  Mr.  Disraeli  made  the  NOV.  is. 
curious  and  unaccountable  blunder  of  borrowing  p/Si/m. 
his  peroration  from  the  eulogy  of  M.  Thiers  on 
Marshal  Gouvion  de  St.  Cyr.  He  explained  that 
he  had  copied  the  passage  into  his  Commonplace 
Book,  and  mistaken  it  for  his  own.  But  as  M. 
Thiers  did  not  speak  English,  the  explanation  was 
not  felt  to  be  explanatory.  The  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton's unparalleled  career  falls  almost  wholly  beyond 
the  scope  of  this  work.  His  military  fame  stands 
out  clearer  and  higher  with  the  progress  of  criticism 
and  the  lapse  of  time.  But  his  campaigns  ended  in 
1815,  when  he  was  forty-six,  and  he  never  afterwards 
took  the  field.  His  political  creed  was  a  high  and 
dry  Toryism,  modified  by  a  keen  perception  of 
what  was  possible  at  the  moment,  which  always 
guided  his  practical  conduct.  His  last  great  service  The  »nke  s 
to  the  State  consisted  in  helping  Peel  to  carry  the° 
Corn  Bill,  not  because  he  believed  in  Free  Trade, 
but  because  the  Queen's  Government  had  to  be 
carried  on.  After  that,  though  he  remained  at  the 
head  of  the  army,  he  was  little  more  than  a  figure- 
head, receiving,  without  appearing  to  notice  it,  the 
homage  of  all  classes,  and  the  unbounded  deference 
of  Whig  or  Tory  Ministers.  He  was  succeeded  as 
Commander-in-Chief  by  Lord  Hardinge,  a  devoted 
Peelite,  and  Peel's  most  intimate  friend.  The 
University  of  Oxford  elected  the  Prime  Minister 


262   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  as  their  new  Chancellor,  and  were  saved  from  the 
false  quantities  which  they  had  endured  with 
amused  tolerance  in  the  Duke.  But  the  Duke's 
place  in  England  could  not  really  be  filled.  There 
had  been  nothing  like  it  before,  and  there  has  been 
nothing  like  it  since. 

The  new  Parliament  met  on  the  4th  of  Novem- 
ihe  critical  ber.  When  the  results  of  the  General  Election 
the  Govern-  were  fully  known,  it  became  evident  that  the 
Government  of  Lord  Derby  was  in  what  mathe- 
maticians call  unstable  equilibrium.  Greville  tells 
a  curious  story,  which  illustrates  the  critical 
condition  of  the  Ministry.  The  British  Am- 
bassador at  Paris,  the  second  Lord  Cowley,  had 
been  appointed  by  Lord  Granville.  Lord  Derby 
Lord  wrote  to  him,  and  asked  for  his  proxy.1  Cowley 
e 8  objected,  alleging  that  his  position  as  Ambassador 
severed  him  from  party  politics.  But  Derby 
persisted,  saying  that  "he  was  placed  in  a  very 
difficult  position,  not  even  knowing  that  he  had 
a  majority  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  as  he 
considered  this  the  last  chance  of  establishing 
a  Conservative  Government  in  this  country, 
he  felt  bound  to  make  every  exertion  to  main- 
tain himself  in  power,  and  he  intimated  as 
much  as  that  on  his  consent  to  give  his  proxy 
would  depend  his  retaining  the  Embassy."2  The 
proxy  was  finally  given  by  Cowley  to  his  uncle 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  who  died  before  Parlia- 
ment met.  But  the  incident  is  significant,  and 
so  is  Lord  Derby's  language.  On  the  other 

of  thTce     hand,  the  Opposition  were  far  from  being  united. 
opposition.  There    wag    great    djscontent    ^h    Lord    John 

Russell's   leadership,   and   many  Whigs    declared 
that  they  would  follow  him  no  more.     Lord  John 

1  A  proxy,  now  obsolete,  was  the  right  of  voting  in  the  name  of  the 
Peer  who  gave  it 

a  "Greville  Memoirs/'  28th  August  1852. 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  263 

himself  talked    about    "  intrigues,"    and    was    en- 1352. 
couraged  to  believe  in  them  by  his  father-in-law, 
Lord  Minto.     But  there  seems  to  have  been  no 
intrigue,  only  a  general  loss  of  confidence,  not  in 
the  circumstances  surprising,  as  Lord  John  did  not  Lord  John-. 
know  his  own  mind,  and  wavered  from  week  to  Ta°m 
week.      On  the  13th  of  August  he  had  written, 
with  singular  want  of  prescience,  to  Lord  Aberdeen, 
saying  that  he  would  not    lead    the    House   of 
Commons  for  a  Premier  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
On  the  3rd  of  October  he  told  Lord  Minto  that 
he  would  not   serve  under  a  Peer  younger  than 
himself,  by  which  he  meant  that  he  would  serve 
under  Lord  Lansdowne.     Meanwhile,  on  the  17th 
of  September,  Lord  Palmerston  met  the  Duke  of 
Bedford  at  Brocket,  and  said  frankly  that,  while 
he  would  act  as  Lord  John's  colleague,  he  would 
not  again  be  his  subordinate.     He  had,  however, 
been  much  gratified  by  Lord  John's  willingness  to 
serve  under  Lord  Lansdowne,  and  remarked  that  paimer- 
for  the  first  time  he  now  saw  daylight  in  public  Ittuude. 
affairs. 

But  there  was  a  preliminary  step  to  be  taken, 
and  it  was  not  quite  so  easy  as  it  seemed  to  get 
rid  of  Lord  Derby's  Government.  The  Queen's  The  Queen* 
Speech,  delivered  on  the  llth  of  November,  con-  Sl 
tained  a  paragraph,  "  as  ambiguous  as  words  could 
make  it,"  on  the  subject  of  Free  Trade.  Her 
Majesty  was  made  to  say  that  if  the  beneficial 
effects  of  recent  legislation  on  the  industrial  classes 
had  been  accompanied  by  injury  to  others,  com- 
pensation might  have  to  be  provided.  Lord  Derby 
held  out  no  hope  of  reviving  Protection.  But  it 
was  deemed  necessary  to  extract  some  definite 
statement  from  Ministers,  and  accordingly  Mr. 
Charles  Villiers  was  entrusted  with  a  motion  which 
described  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  as  a  "just, 
wise,  and  beneficial  measure."  These  "three 


264   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  odious  epithets,"  as  the  Protectionists  called  them, 
were  introduced  with  the  approval  of  Lord  John 
Russell  and  Sir  James  Graham.  In  truth,  there 
was  equally  little  reason  for  objecting  to  the  epi- 
thets, and  for  insisting  upon  them.  The  success 
of  Free  Trade  was  patent,  the  abandonment  of 
Protection  was  complete,  and  no  epithets,  odious 
or  otherwise,  could  alter  the  facts,  which  spoke 
for  themselves.  The  debate,  which  began  on  the 
23rd  of  November,  and  lasted  for  three  nights, 
was  extremely  brilliant,  but  it  cannot  be  called 
practical.  Mr.  Villiers  was  well  qualified  to 
move,  for  he  was  even  then  the  oldest  in  stand- 
ing of  the  free  traders  in  Parliament.  To 
his  motion  Mr.  Disraeli  proposed  an  amend- 
ment in  favour  of  "unrestricted  competition,"  as 
favourable  to  the  working  classes.  Against  Mr. 
Disraeli's  amendment  Mr.  Villiers'  motion  would 
palmer-  probably  have  been  carried.  But  Lord  Palmerston 
amend-  came  to  the  rescue  of  the  Government  with  a 
formula  which  he  offered  in  substitution  for  Mr. 
Disraeli's.  This  was  substantially  the  original 
motion  without  the  "odious  epithets,"  and  Mr. 
Disraeli  eagerly  accepted  it.  It  was  carried  by  a 
majority  of  80,  and  the  Government  was  saved. 
But  they  did  not  escape  castigation.  Lord  Granby, 
one  of  the  "Triumvirate"  who  led  the  Protec- 
tionists in  Opposition,  had  been  left  out  of  the 
Government.  He  now  asked  Mr.  Disraeli  and 
his  colleagues  why,  if  all  these  fine  results  had 
followed  from  Free  Trade,  they  did  not  express  in 
public  their  respect  for  the  wisdom  and  foresight 
A  tribute  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  The  shot  went  home.  There 
memory  was  a  loud  outburst  of  applause.  Sir  John  Pakington 
declared  that  no  word  of  disrespect  for  Sir  Robert 
Peel  had  ever  escaped  his  lips,  and  that  in  his 
opinion  a  purer  patriot  never  lived.  Mr.  Sidney 
Herbert,  incidentally  remarking  that  he  had  never 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  265 

suspected  Mr.  Disraeli  of  believing  in  Protection,  1352. 
recalled  the  fact  that  he  had  heard  Sir  Robert  Peel 
attacked  by  the  Protectionists  in  the  vilest  lan- 
guage, and  accused  of  the  meanest  crimes.  The 
last  thing,  he  said,  that  Peel  ever  desired  was  the 
humiliation  of  his  adversaries.  "  But,"  he  ex- 
claimed, pointing  to  the  Treasury  Bench,  "  if  you 
want  to  see  humiliation,  which,  God  knows,  is 
always  a  painful  sight,  you  have  only  to  look 
there."  Mr.  Gladstone,  much  to  Cobden's  disgust, 
joined  Mr.  Herbert  in  supporting  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  amendment,  and  earnestly  deprecating  a 
spirit  of  revenge.  Lord  John  Russell  voted  with 
Mr.  Villiers.  After  some  discussion,  and  much 
manoeuvring,  a  similar  motion  in  favour  of  Free 
Trade  was  unanimously  passed  by  the  House  of 
Lords.  Protection  was  not  merely  dead.  It  was  me  end  of 
buried. 

sio  was  the  French  Republic.     On  the  2nd  of  and  of  the 
December  1852,  the  anniversary  of  the  coup  d'tiat,  Republic. 
the   assumption   of   the    Imperial   title   by   Louis 
Napoleon  was  announced,  and  on  the  6th  it  was 
communicated  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament.    Mr. 
Disraeli  contented  himself  with  a  bare  statement 
of  the  fact.     Lord  Malmesbury,  on  the  contrary,  Lord 
thought  fit  to  deliver  a  glowing  encomium  of  a  bury™68 
man  whom  most   Englishmen,   and  some  of  the  iSST  ° 
best  Frenchmen,  regarded  as  a  liar,  a  murderer,  N 
and  a  thief.     The  recognition  of  the  Empire  was 
a  matter  of  course,  for  the  form  of  government 
chosen  by  France  was  no  business  of  ours.     But 
the  Foreign  Secretary  gave  great  and  just  offence 
by  going   out  of  his  way  to  extol  the  ruthless 
slaughterer  of  his  countrymen,  the  robber  of  the 
Orleanist  estates,  and  the  violator  of  the  Consti- 
tution   he    had   sworn    to   observe.      The  formal 
extinction    of  liberty    in    France   was    a    strange 
subject  for  rejoicing  in  a  free  country,  and  a  nation 


266    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  which  had  just  buried  Wellington  was  not  inclined 
to  gush  over  Napoleon  the  Little.  The  voice  of 
the  French  people,  however,  was  overwhelmingly 
decisive.  Nearly  eight  millions  voted  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Imperial  dynasty,  already  decreed 
by  the  Senate.  Only  a  quarter  of  a  million  voted 
against  it.  Some  difficulty  was  at  first  caused  by 

ffiK  *ke  ^e  Napoleon  the  Third.1  But  the  Emperor 
explained  that  he  made  no  retrospective  claims. 
He  acknowledged  all  previous  governments,  and 
their  acts.  He  only  desired  to  be  regarded  as  the 
lineal  successor  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  and  the 
Duke  of  Reichstadt.  The  Emperor  had  at  that 
time  no  idea  of  invading  England.  As  soon  would 
a  converted  burglar,  anxious  to  make  his  way  into 
the  best  society  of  a  cathedral  town,  have  begun 
by  stealing  the  cathedral  plate.  He  had  insisted 
upon  his  Ambassador,  Count  Walewski,  attending 
the  Duke  of  Wellington's  funeral.  Walewski  at 
first  demurred.  But  his  scruples  were  quieted  by 
Baron  Brunnow,  the  Ambassador  of  Russia,  who 
said  to  him,  "My  dear  Count,  if  this  ceremony 
were  intended  to  bring  the  Duke  to  life  again,  I 
could  understand  your  objections.  But  as  it  is 
only  to  bury  him,  I  don't  see  why  you  should 
mind."  The  professed  friendship  of  the  Emperor 
was  much  more  dangerous  to  England  than  his 
supposed  enmity.  He  was  incapable  of  being 
either  a  real  enemy  or  a  true  friend. 

Meanwhile  the  fate  of  Lord  Derby's  Govern- 

Disraeirs     nient  was  being  decided  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

Budget.      The  Queen's  Speech  promised  measures  of  relief 

Dec.  s.  to  distressed  interests.  These  measures  were  ex- 
pounded in  a  financial  statement,  delivered  at  a 
most  unusual  time,  the  last  month  of  the  year. 

1  Said  to  have  been  first  used  unintentionally  by  an  enthusiastic 
Prefect,  who  ended  an  official  document  with  the  words  Vive  Napoleon, 
and  added  three  notes  of  admiration  ! ! ! 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  267 

In  expounding  them  Mr.  Disraeli  spoke  for  more  1852. 
than  five  hours.  Macaulay,  a  man  of  letters,  said 
that  he  could  have  done  it  in  two.  Cobden,  a  man 
of  business,  pronounced  that  an  hour  and  twenty 
minutes  would  have  been  enough.  Mr.  Disraeli 
went  solemnly  through  the  interests  to  be  relieved, 
one  by  one.  There  was  shipping,  there  was  sugar, 
there  was  land.  Shipping  would  be  freed  from 
light-duties,  to  the  amount  of  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds.  The  producers  of  West  Indian  sugar 
would  be  allowed  to  refine  it  in  bond,  a  concession 
which  Greville  describes  as  a  drop  of  water  to  one 
dying  of  thirst.  Those  whom  it  concerned  re- 
pudiated it  as  trivial  and  puerile.  Coming  to  the 
land,  Mr.  Disraeli  elicited  much  ironical  cheering 
from  the  other  side  by  the  announcement  that 
there  would  be  no  change  in  local  taxation,  which 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  before  he  took 
office  had  repeatedly  attacked  as  scandalously 
unjust.  Then  he  came  to  the  real  remissions. 
Half  the  duty  on  malt  was  to  be  taken  off.  The 
tea  duty,  which  stood  at  2s.  2jd.  in  the  pound, 
was  to  be  gradually  reduced  for  six  years  until  it 
reached  a  shilling.  These  two  indulgences  would 
cost  something  between  three  and  four  millions. 
The  Committee  were  told  that  exemptions  from 
direct  taxes  were  bad,  and  that  the  limit  of  ex- 
emption from  the  income  tax  would  be  fixed  at 
a  hundred  a  year  for  industrial  incomes,  or  fifty 
pounds  for  realised  property.  Farmers  would  be 
allowed  to  compute  their  profits  at  a  third  of  their 
rent  instead  of  half.  Ireland  had  hitherto  been 
entirely  free  from  income  tax.  It  would  in  future 
be  levied  upon  the  funded  property  and  the  salaries 
of  Irishmen.  The  house  tax,  which  Sir  Charles 
Wood  had  substituted  for  the  window  tax,  would 
be  doubled  in  amount,  and  the  limit  of  exemption 
lowered  from  twenty  pounds  of  annual  value  to 


268    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  ten.  Except  for  the  reduction  of  the  tea  duty,  this 
was  one  of  the  worst  Budgets  ever  brought  in. 
There  was,  indeed,  no  sort  of  Protection  in  it.  The 
malt  tax,  like  the  tea  duty,  was  paid  by  the  con- 
sumer. The  house  tax  is  direct,  but  it  fell  with 
crushing  severity  upon  the  poor,  and  to  double  it 
for  the  purpose  of  halving  the  malt  tax  was 
fantastic.  The  Budget  simply  bristled  with  vulner- 
able points.  Even  Sir  Charles  Wood  felt  able  to 
jeer  at  it,  and  to  suggest  that  it  should  be 
withdrawn.  Mr.  Goulburn  and  Mr.  Gladstone 
denounced  the  special  tax  upon  Irish  fund-holders 
as  a  breach  of  public  faith.  Protectionists  asked 
where  was  the  Protection,  and  free  traders  asked 
where  was  the  sense.  The  debate  was  long  and 
acrimonious.  At  length,  late  at  night  on  the  16th 

Disraeli's  of  December,  Mr.  Disraeli  rose  to  reply.  He  soon 
left  the  uncongenial  fields  of  finance,  and  turned 
upon  his  assailants  with  marvellous  energy.  He 
called  Mr.  Goulburn  a  weird  Sibyl.  He  assured 
Sir  Charles  Wood  that  petulance  was  not  sarcasm, 
and  that  insolence  was  not  invective.  He  told  Sir 
James  Graham  that  he  regarded  him,  but  did  not 
respect  him.  He  flung  his  missiles  right  and  left 
without  much  heeding  where  they  fell.  When  he 
sat  down  the  Committee  was  to  divide.  But 

Gladstone's  suddenly  Mr.  Gladstone  rose,  at  two  in  the  morn- 
ing, with  the  emphatic  remark  that  such  a  speech 
must  be  answered  at  once,  and  on  the  spot.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  the  long  duel  which  lasted, 
with  some  intermission,1  while  Mr.  Disraeli  re- 
mained in  the  House  of  Commons.  Mr.  Gladstone 
protested,  in  sentences  constantly  interrupted  by 
tumultuous  cheering  and  counter-cheering,  that  the 
characters  of  men  who  had  been  long  in  the  public 
service  were  entitled  to  esteem,  and  that  offences 
against  good  taste  became  infinitely  graver  when 

1  From  1855  to  1859. 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  269 

committed  by  the  Leader  of  the  House  of  Com- 1352. 
mons.  Of  the  Budget  he  said  that  it  consecrated 
the  principle  of  a  deficiency,  that  it  provided  no 
real  surplus  at  all,  and  that  it  juggled  with  taxation 
without  any  attempt  at  improvement  or  reform. 
When  the  Committee  divided  there  were  593 
members  present,  and  the  Budget  was  rejected  by 
a  majority  of  19.  Lord  Derby  and  his  colleagues 
at  once  resigned. 

The  Government  left  Europe  at  peace,  and  Lord 
foreign  affairs,  so  far  as  this  country  was  concerned,  resignation. 
in  a  satisfactory  condition.  By  the  Treaty  of  Lon- 
don the  Danish  question  was  settled  for  a  time,  the 
Duchies  of  Schleswig  and  Holstein  being  incor- 
porated with  the  kingdom  of  Denmark,  and  secured 
under  a  guarantee  of  the  Five  Powers  to  the  in- 
heritance of  Prince  Christian,  afterwards  King. 
Lord  Malmesbury  did  not  understand  diplomacy, 
nor  the  art  of  writing  despatches,  though  he  had 
edited  so  many.  But  he  knew  his  own  mind,  and 
the  permanent  staff  of  the  Foreign  Office,  very 
competent  judges,  thought  more  highly  of  him 
than  did  the  general  public.  The  great  event  of 
Lord  Derby's  first  Administration,  the  conquest  of 
Lower  Burmah,  was  one  with  which  the  Cabinet  The  con 
had  little  or  nothing  to  do.  Mr.  Bright  raised  a  Lower01 
laugh  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  referring  to  Bl 
Mr.  Herries  as  the  "  Governor  of  our  Indian  pos- 
sessions." It  is  doubtful  whether  the  Governor  of 
our  Indian  possessions  realised  that  such  a  person 
as  Mr.  Herries  existed.  Lord  Dalhousie  always 
kept  on  good  terms  with  the  Directors.  But  he 
governed  India,  and  if  any  one  had  interfered  with 
him  he  would  have  come  home.  There  was  no  tele- 
graph to  India  then,  and  the  "  Governor-General  in 
Council "  was  in  Lord  Dalhousie's  time  a  synonym 
for  the  Governor- General.  Ever  since  the  conclu- 
sion of  peace  with  Burmah  in  1820,  there  had  been 


270   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  complaints  that  the  King  of  Ava  ill-treated  British 
subjects,  and  did  not  keep  his  word.  There  is  no 
evidence  that  Lord  Dalhousie  wished  for  annexa- 
tion. But  he  certainly  did  not  shrink  from  it,  and 
he  foresaw  that  the  whole  of  Burmah  would  one 
day  become  British,  though  he  hoped  that  that 
would  not  be  in  his  time.  In  the  summer  of  1851 
two  captains  of  British  vessels  were  imprisoned  on 
false  and  flimsy  charges  at  Rangoon,  "  the  City  of 
Victory."  The  British  residents  at  Rangoon  sent  a 
petition  for  redress  to  the  Governor-General.  Lord 
Dalhousie  at  once  despatched  Commodore  Lam- 
bert, of  H.M.S.  Fox,  with  two  steamers,  to  demand 
reparation.  The  envoys  having  been  treated  with 
indignity,  the  Irrawaddy  was  blockaded,  and  a  Bur- 
mese ship  was  captured  as  ransom.  The  original 
compensation  asked  was  nine  thousand  pounds, 
is.  Failing  to  obtain  it,  Lord  Dalhousie  issued  an  ulti- 
matum demanding  an  apology,  a  fine  of  ten  million 
rupees,1  the  dismissal  of  the  Governor  who  had 
insulted  British  seamen,  and  the  establishment  of 
a  British  Resident,  as  provided  by  the  Treaty  of 
1826,  which  had  never  been  carried  out.  These 
terms  were  to  be  accepted  before  the  1st  of  April. 
The  alternative  was  war.  One  of  Lord  Dalhousie's 
biographers,  Sir  Edwin  Arnold,  is  inclined  to 

•  believe  that  at  this  point  war  might  have  been 
avoided.  The  King  did  not  reject  the  Governor- 
General's  proposals.  He  vacillated  and  temporised. 
Lord  Dalhousie  behaved  with  perfect  fairness,  and 
waited  for  the  specified  day.  But  he  was  a  man  of 
decisive  action,  and  he  was  probably  not  sorry  to 
have  a  final  settlement  of  long-standing  disputes. 
Certainly  he  lost  no  time.  On  the  5th  of  April 
Martaban  was  taken.  The  bloodiest  and  most 
obstinate  fighting  occurred  round  the  Pagoda,  the 
Temple-Fortress  of  Rangoon,  which  was  apparently 

1  One  million  sterling. 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT  271 

impregnable,  and  was  held  by  eighteen  thousand  of  1352. 
the  best  Burmese  troops.  Nevertheless,  General 
Godwin  succeeded  in  driving  them  out  and  occupy- 
ing the  Pagoda,  with  less  than  six  thousand  men  of 
the  East  India  Company's  forces.  It  was  a  most 
brilliant  feat  of  arms,  and  it  decided  the  war. 
When  Lord  Dalhousie  himself  arrived  at  Rangoon 
on  the  27th  of  July,  he  said,  "General,  I  cannot 
conceive  how  you  got  in  there."  Lord  Dalhousie 
knew  how  to  say  things,  and  also  when  to  say 
them.  Hostilities  dragged  on  for  some  months,  but 
the  loss  of  life,  though  serious,  was  much  diminished 
by  the  Governor-General's  admirable  arrangements 
for  supplying  the  troops  with  tents,  food,  and  medi- 
cines. No  campaign  was  ever  better  managed  in 
these  essential  respects.  After  the  fall  of  the 
Pagoda,  General  Godwin  had  the  command  of  the 
river  from  Rangoon  to  Prome.  Prome  was  occupied 
in  October,  Pegu  in  November,  and  on  the  20th  of 
December  the  whole  of  Lower  Burmah  was  annexed 
by  proclamation  to  the  British  Crown.  An  in- 
demnity of  a  million  and  a  half  sterling  was  also 
exacted.  The  Directors  were  for  annexing  the  Lower 
whole  of  Burmah,  but  against  this  policy  Lorda^Se 
Dalhousie  protested  as  premature,  and  he  had  his  crown!148 
way.  He  had  now  been  five  years  at  Calcutta,  and 
would  in  the  ordinary  course  have  come  home. 
But  he  sacrificed  his  life  to  India,  and  stayed 
for  another  term.  In  April  of  the  same  year 
from  which  dates  this  addition  to  British  rule  in 
India,  the  independence  of  the  Transvaal  Boers 
was  recognised  by  General  Sir  George  Cathcart, 
Governor  of  Cape  Colony,  under  the  Sand  River 
Convention.1  This  policy  was  adopted  for  the 
sole  reason  that  British  interests  demanded  the 

1  Approved  by  Sir  John  Pakington  as  Secretary  of  State  for  the 
Colonies  in  June.  It  acknowledged  ' '  the  right  of  the  emigrant  farmers 
beyond  the  Vaal  to  manage  their  own  affairs." 


272   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1852.  strict  limitation  of  the  Queen's  sovereignty  in 
South  Africa,  and  not  from  any  tenderness  for 
the  Boers. 

^ne  Parliament  of  1852  was  the  first  in  which 
the  principle  of  tenant  right  for  Ireland  was  formu- 
lated by  an  organised  band  of  Irish  members. 
They  voted  against  Mr.  Disraeli's  Budget,  and 
thus  determined  the  fate  of  Lord  Derby's  Govern- 
ment. According  to  Sir  Charles  Gavaii  Duffy,1 
they  were  guided  solely  by  the  attitude  of  the 

w&  tenant  Government  towards  tenant  right.  Mr.  Sharman 
Crawford  had  brought  in  a  Bill  giving  the  Irish 
tenant  a  right  to  compensation  for  his  improve- 
ments. He  had,  however,  no  seat  in  the  new 
House  of  Commons,  and  his  place  was  taken  by 
Serjeant  Shee.  The  Serjeant's  Bill  was  by  arrange- 
ment read  a  second  time,  and  referred  to  the  same 
Committee  with  four  Bills  for  amending  the  Land 
Laws  which  had  been  introduced  by  Sir  Joseph 
Napier,  then  the  eloquent  Attorney -General  for 
Ireland.  Private  negotiations  were  set  on  foot, 
says  Sir  Charles  Duffy,  with  a  member  of  the 
Cabinet,2  and  the  Irish  demanded  as  the  price  of 
their  votes  the  adoption  by  the  Government  of 
the  Tenant  Right  Bill.  It  is  probable,  though  not 
certain,  that  Mr.  Disraeli  consented  to  this  bargain. 
But  Dublin  Castle  objected,  the  landlords  took 
fright,  and  on  the  10th  of  December  Lord  Roden 

Lord  put  a  specific  question  to  Lord  Derby.  On  this 
*  occasion  Lord  Derby  spoke  out.  He  said  that 
nothing  would  induce  him  to  support  the  Bill, 
which  he  regarded  as  inconsistent  with  the  rights 
of  property.  So  Gavan  Duffy,  and  Lucas,  and 
their  friends  voted  with  the  Opposition.  Among 
the  majority  may  also  be  found  the  notorious 
names  of  John  Sadleir  and  William  Keogh.  Isaac 
Butt,  on  the  other  hand,  then  a  Tory  and  always 

1  League  of  the  North  and  South,  pp.  234-235.  2  Mr.  Disraeli. 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT   273 

a  Protectionist,  voted  with  the  Government.  It  1852. 
may  be  doubted  whether  Lord  Derby  knew  that 
there  had  been  any  dealings  with  the  Irish.  For 
though,  in  announcing  his  resignation  to  the  House 
of  Lords,  he  took  the  unusual  and  not  very  digni- 
fied course  of  protesting  against  the  combination  of 
parties  to  upset  his  Ministry,  he  made  no  reference 
to  the  fact  that  Ireland  had  turned  the  scale.  The 
charge  of  combination,  if  it  be  a  charge,  was  easily 
answered.  For  the  Peelites  had  combined  with 
Lord  Palmerston  in  defence  of  the  Government 
against  the  motion  of  Mr.  Villiers. 

The  controversies  which  afterwards  agitated  the 
Church  of  England  on  the  subject  of  ritual  may  be  Ritualism : 
said  to  date  from  the  institution  of  the  Rev.  W.  J.  E.  »££££' ^ 
Bennett  to  the  vicarage  of  Frome  in  Somerset  by 
Bishop  Bagot  of  Bath  and  Wells.  In  1850  Mr. 
Bennett  had,  under  pressure  from  Bishop  Blomfield, 
resigned  the  perpetual  curacy  of  St.  Paul's,  Knights- 
bridge,  which  included  the  Church  of  St.  Barnabas, 
Pimh'co,  and  he  had  been  charged  by  the  Bishop, 
himself  a  High  Churchman,  with  Romanising 
practices.  When,  therefore,  his  appointment  was 
announced,  in  1852,  there  was  considerable  outcry, 
and  Mr.  Horsman  brought  the  matter  before  the 
House  of  Commons.  He  failed  in  his  attempt  APK;  20. 
to  procure  a  Royal  Commission,  which  would 
have  been  a  strangely  inappropriate  remedy,  but 
afterwards  carried  against  Lord  Derby's  Govern- 
ment a  motion  for  a  Select  Committee.  Th 
Committee  never  sat,  Mr.  Horsman  being  unable 
to  formulate  his  charges  against  the  Bishop.  He 
encountered  the  obstacle  which  has  barred  the 
way  both  to  reform  and  to  persecution  in  the 
Church  of  England — the  principle  of  private  pro- 
perty. The  majority  of  English  benefices  are 
in  the  hands  of  private  patrons,  and  the  patron  of 
Frome  was  then  the  Marchioness  of  Bath.  Lady 

VOL.  I  T 


274   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1862.  Bath  had  the  legal  right  of  presenting  any  clerk  in 
priest's  orders  to  the  vicarage  of  Frome,  and  if  the 
Bishop  had  refused  to  institute  Mr.  Bennett,  he 
would  have  been  compelled  to  prove  some  definite 
charge  against  him  in  a  court  of  law.  Bishop 
Bagot,  going  further  than  he  need  have  gone, 
gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  Mr.  Bennett  had  a  firm 
and  deep-rooted  attachment  to  the  Church  of 
England,  which,  according  to  his  own  idea  of  that 
Church,  he  doubtless  had.  But  he  was  not  the 
harbinger  of  peace  to  the  parish  of  Frome. 

Two  other  topics  remain  to  be  mentioned  before 
we  take  leave  of  the  year  1852.  The  Queen's 
Speech  at  the  close  of  the  session,  delivered  on  the 
1st  of  July,  contained  the  following  paragraph  : — 
"  The  recent  discoveries  of  extensive  goldfields 
have  produced  in  the  Australian  colonies  a  tem- 

Australia.  j-    .        i  f  •    *  •    • 

porary  disturbance  of  society  requiring  prompt 
attention.  I  have  taken  such  steps  as  appeared  to 
me  most  urgently  necessary  for  the  mitigation  of 
this  serious  evil.  I  shall  continue  anxiously  to 
watch  the  important  results  which  must  follow 
from  these  discoveries."  There  is  a  commendable 
absence  of  exultation  in  the  tone  of  the  Ministerial 
language.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  first  con- 
sequence recorded  to  have  ensued  from  this  dis- 
covery of  gold  was  a  breach  of  the  peace.  As  for 
the  "  important  results,"  they  were  chiefly  two. 
There  was  a  rapid  influx  into  Australia  of  emigrants 
not  much  more  desirable  than  the  convicts  who 
had  been  forced  upon  them  by  the  mother  country. 
There  was  also  the  phenomenon  usually  called  a 
depreciation  of  gold.  So  far  as  this  concerned  gold 
as  an  ordinary  article  of  commerce,  it  was  of  small 
importance  to  the  general  public.  But  gold  being 
in  England  the  standard  of  currency,  its  more 
plentiful  supply,  and  increased  cheapness,  propor- 
tionately raised  prices.  Between  buyer  and  seller 


THE  FIRST  DERBY  GOVERNMENT   275 

the  effect  was  nominal.  In  spite  of  appearances,  1352. 
each  really  paid  or  received  the  same  amount  in 
value.  Fixed  incomes,  however,  became  less  valu- 
able, and  fixed  charges  less  onerous.  At  the  same 
time  there  has  been  a  tendency,  even  among  econo- 
mists, to  exaggerate  the  significance  of  fluctuations 
in  the  supply  of  gold.  The  enormous  extension  of 
credit,  and  the  constant  use  of  cheques  or  of  bank- 
notes, which,  though  convertible,  are  not  converted, 
have  reduced  the  supply  of  gold  indispensable  for 
commerce  to  a  very  low  level  indeed.  Large 
fortunes  were  made  out  of  the  Australian  gold- 
fields,  and  men  fought  each  other  like  wild  beasts 
for  nuggets.  But  the  wealth  of  the  world  was  not 
appreciably  increased,  and  the  stability  of  the  gold 
standard  was  not  sensibly  impaired. 

Far  more  important  to  the  working  classes,  and 
to  the  industrial  prospects  of  the  country  than 
any  discovery  of  gold,  was  the  progress  of  Trade 
Unionism,  then  very  slow,  and  subject  to  dis- 
couraging interruptions.  One  of  the  best  and 
strongest  Unions,  the  Amalgamated  Society  of 
Engineers,  founded  in  1850,  was  signally  defeated 
by  the  employers  in  1852.  For  three  months  from 
the  1st  of  January  they  conducted  in  London  and 
Lancashire  a  strike  which  had  begun  with  the 
engine -works  of  Messrs.  Hibbert  and  Platt  at 
Oldham.  The  Christian  Socialists  gave  it  their 
support,  and  Lord  Goderich  subscribed  five  hun- 
dred pounds  to  the  maintenance  of  the  strikers. 
But  the  strike  utterly  failed,  and  at  the  beginning 
of  April  the  men  returned  to  work  on  the  masters' 
terms.1  Combination  was  still  in  its  infancy,  and 
the  capitalists  had  nine-tenths  of  the  law. 

1  History  of  Trade  Unionism,  B.  and  S.  Webb,  p.  196. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   COALITION 

1852.  IT  is  an  established  maxim  of  the  British  consti- 


tution  that  when  a  Prime  Minister  resigns,  the 
crown.  Sovereign  need  not  consult  him  about  the  choice 
of  a  successor.  In  these  circumstances,  and  in 
these  alone,  the  action  of  the  Crown  is  absolutely 
unfettered.  The  doctrine  of  Ministerial  responsi- 
bility is  saved  by  throwing  it  upon  the  statesman 
who  accepts  the  task  of  forming  a  new  Govern- 
ment. Practically,  however,  the  Royal  choice  is 
limited  to  the  very  few  men  who  at  any  given 
time  are  capable  of  commanding  a  majority  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  In  December  1852  the  only 
living  Englishman  who  had  been  Prime  Minister, 
besides  Lord  Derby,  was  Lord  John  RusselL  But 
Her  Majesty  did  not  send  for  him,  and  that  appar- 
ently for  two  reasons.  First,  the  Tory  Govern- 
ment had  been  turned  out  by  a  combination  of 
Whigs  and  Peelites.  Secondly,  Lord  John  himself 
was  distrusted  not  only  by  most  Peelites,  but  also 
by  many  Whigs.  Such  being  the  state  of  the  case, 
Her  Majesty  addressed  a  joint  summons  to  the 
Marquess  of  Lansdowne,  the  oldest  of  the  Whigs, 
and  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  the  oldest  of  the  Peelites. 
Lord  Lansdowne  was  prevented  by  illness  from 
going  to  Osborne,  and  pleaded  his  health  as  a 
reason  for  refusing  a  commission  to  which  he  did 
not  aspire.  Lord  Aberdeen,  having  first  obtained 

276 


THE  COALITION  277 

a   promise    of    co-operation   from   Lord   John   as  1852. 
Foreign    Secretary   and   leader   of  the    House   of 
Commons,  undertook  the  task. 

On  the  last  day  of  the  year  1852  the  Adminis-  Lord 
tration  of  Lord  Aberdeen  had  been  completely 
formed,  the  necessary  writs  had  been  moved,  and mi 
both  Houses  adjourned  to  the  10th  of  February 
1853.  Nothing  could  look  stronger  on  paper  than 
the  new  Government.  Like  the  Cabinet  of  1806, 
which,  however,  lasted  less  than  a  year,  it  was 
called  the  Ministry  of  All  the  Talents.  It  included, 
as  Lord  Palmerston  said,  every  man  of  the  first 
rank  in  the  House  of  Commons,  except  Mr. 
Disraeli.  It  was  almost  equally  divided  between 
Whigs  and  Peelites.  The  Peelites,  besides  the  The 
Prime  Minister,  were  Mr.  Gladstone,  Chancellor Pe 
of  the  Exchequer  ;  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  Secre- 
tary for  the  Colonies ;  Sir  James  Graham,  who 
returned  to  the  Admiralty,  where  he  had  been 
twenty  years  before,  under  Lord  Grey ;  and  Mr. 
Sidney  Herbert,  Secretary  at  War.  The  Whigs 
were  the  Foreign  Secretary,  Lord  John  Russell ; 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  Lord  Cranworth;  the  Presid- 
ent of  the  Council,  Lord  Granville ;  the  Lord  Privy 
Seal,  the  Duke  of  Argyll ;  the  Home  Secretary, 
Lord  Palmerston ;  the  President  of  the  India 
Board,  Sir  Charles  Wood ;  and  Lord  Lansdowne, 
who  sat  in  the  Cabinet  without  holding  any  office. 
The  Radicals  were  represented  by  Sir  William 
Molesworth,  Chief  Commissioner  of  Woods  and 
Forests.  But  Lord  Granville,  though  reckoned  a 
Whig,  was  an  exceedingly  advanced  one,  and  be- 
longed economically,  if  not  altogether  politically, 
to  the  Manchester  School.  The  ablest  Minister 
outside  the  Cabinet,  from  which  he  was  unfortu- 
nately excluded  by  Whig  jealousy,  was  a  Peelite, 
Mr.  Cardwell.  Three  Irish  Catholics,  two  of  whom 
were  unwisely  chosen,  held  subordinate  posts. 


278   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  Against  Mr.  Monsell,  Clerk  of  the  Ordnance,  after- 
Brigadiers  wards  Lord  Emly,  nothing  could  be  said.  But 
Mr.  John  Sadleir,  a  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  who 
ended  his  life  by  committing  suicide  to  escape 
penal  servitude,  first  lost  his  seat  at  Carlow,  and 
then  had  to  leave  the  Government  on  account  of 
the  means  by  which  he  secured  the  suffrages  of 
Sligo.  And  Mr.  Keogh,  the  Irish  Solicitor-General, 
though  he  became  a  Judge,  never  earned  the  re- 
spect of  any  class  or  any  party  in  Ireland.  These 
three  appointments,  so  far  from  conciliating  the 
Irish  vote,  were  bitterly  resented  by  Mr.  Gavan 
Duffy,  Mr.  Frederick  Lucas,  and  other  leading 
members  of  the  "  Irish  Brigade,"  otherwise  called 
"the  Pope's  Brass  Band."  Mr.  Duffy,  who  had 
been  three  times  put  on  his  trial  for  treason 
without  result,  and  subsequently  rose  to  great 
distinction  in  Australia,  declared  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that  he  had  seen  practised  upon  some  of 
Duflai?8  k*s  colleagues  corruption  which  recalled  the  days 
charges  of  of  Walpole  and  Pelham.1  He  explained  the  next 

corruption.     •          "   •  *      •  .       *•        •. 

day  that  he  meant  no  more  than  the  abandon- 
ment of  pledges  for  the  sake  of  places,  which 
could  not  be  alleged  against  Monsell,  whatever 
might  be  said  of  Sadleir  and  Keogh.  But 
Duffy  and  Lucas  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
modern  doctrine  that  an  Irish  Nationalist  may  not 
without  disgrace  accept  anything  from  a  British 
Government. 

?srtima£8of  Greville,  with  even  more  than  his  usual  shrewd- 
ness,  remarks  of  Lord  Aberdeen's  Cabinet  that  "  it 
will  be  wonderfully  strong  in  point  of  ability,  and 
in  this  respect  exhibit  a  marked  contrast  with  the 
last ;  but  its  very  excellence  in  this  respect  may 
prove  a  source  of  weakness,  and  eventually  of  dis- 
union. The  late  Cabinet  had  two  paramount  chiefs, 
and  all  the  rest  nonentities,  and  the  nominal  head 

1  Hansard,  6th  May  1863. 


THE  COALITION  279 

was  also  a  real  and  predominant  head.  In  theisss. 
present  Cabinet  are  five  or  six  first-rate  men  of  equal 
or  nearly  equal  pretensions,  none  of  them  likely  to 
acknowledge  the  superiority  or  defer  to  the  opinions 
of  any  other,  and  every  one  of  these  five  or  six 
considering  himself  abler  and  more  important  than 
their  Premier." l  Lord  Aberdeen  had  not  found  it 
easy  to  form  his  Administration.  Lord  Palmerston  palmer 
at  first  refused  to  join  it.  Nor  was  his  refusal  ?ductanco. 
altogether  unnatural.  He  and  Lord  Aberdeen  had 
been  friends  for  sixty  years,  since  they  were  boys  at 
Harrow,  once  known  as  the  school  of  Prime  Ministers. 
But  in  foreign  policy  they  were  at  opposite  extremes, 
as  wide  apart  as  Metternich  and  Canning,  and  Lord 
Aberdeen  had  made  incessant  attacks  upon  Lord 
Palmerston's  conduct  of  Foreign  affairs.  Lord 
Palmerston's  scruples,  however,  were  surmounted. 
His  resumption  of  the  Foreign  Office  was  impossible, 
and  like  a  wise  man,  he  said  that  he  did  not  desire  it. 
He  chose  the  Home  Office,  for  which  Sir  George  ms  choice 
Grey  was  not  at  the  moment  available,  having  lost  otad. 
his  seat  in  Northumberland.  But  of  course  he  well 
knew  that  as  a  Cabinet  Minister  he  would  be  able 
to  exercise  a  considerable  influence  upon  diplomatic 
relations.  The  evil  genius  of  the  Coalition  was 
Lord  John  Russell.  It  would  have  been  better  for  The  post- 
Lord  John's  own  reputation,  as  well  as  for  interests 
compared  with  which  the  reputation  of  any  indi- 
vidual is  small  indeed,  if  he  had  refused  office 
altogether.  He  held  very  strongly  to  the  opinion 
that  he  ought  to  be  Prime  Minister,  though, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  could  not  have  formed  a 
Government.  "When  a  man,"  says  the  Great 
Trimmer,  "thinks  his  place  below  him  he  will 
be  below  his  place."  So  it  was  with  Lord 
John.  At  first  he  told  Lord  Aberdeen  that 
he  would  lead  the  House  of  Commons  as 

1  "Greville  Memoirs/'  24th  December  1852. 


280   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  Foreign  Secretary,  and  on  that  understanding 
Lord  Aberdeen  accepted  the  Commission  of  the 
Queen.  Then  Lord  John  discovered  that  the 
double  position  would  be  too  much  for  him, 
and  declined  to  come  in  at  all.  Lord  Aberdeen 
should  have  taken  him  at  his  word.  But,  on  the 
contrary,  he  declared  that  if  Lord  John  with- 
held his  assistance,  he  should  give  up  the  task. 
Various  influences,  including  the  eloquence  of 
Macaulay,  were  brought  to  bear,  and  at  last  the 
most  sensitive  of  public  men  accepted  the  Foreign 
Office,  on  the  understanding  that  he  should  give  it 
up  a  few  days  after  the  renewal  of  the  Parliamentary 
session,  and  hand  it  over  to  Lord  Clarendon.  A 
worse  arrangement  could  hardly  have  been  made, 
and  when  the  Queen  heard  of  it,  she  was  justly 
annoyed.  Lord  John  even  had  the  folly  to  tell  the 
Ambassadors  at  their  first  meeting  that  he  was  a 
mere  stop-gap,  so  that  these  high  and  mighty  per- 
sonages went  away  with  the  feeling  that  they  had 
been  made  the  victims  of  a  practical  joke.  But 
this  was  only  the  first  in  a  long  series  of  fantastic 
tricks  which  a  man  who  had  been  Prime  Minister 
of  England  did  not  think  it  beneath  him  to  play. 

^  *s  time  to  say  something  of  the  Prime  Minister 
himself.  Lord  Aberdeen,  then  in  his  sixty-ninth 
year,  was  little  known  to  the  general  public.  He 
had  filled  high  office  with  distinction,  and  few  men 
were  better  acquainted  with  foreign  affairs.  He 
was  an  indefatigable  student  with  a  retentive 
memory,  and  his  knowledge  was  accordingly  vast. 
He  was  acquainted  with  many  countries,  and  his 
taste  in  art  was  highly  esteemed  by  connoisseurs. 
His  private  character  was  not  only  beyond  reproach, 
but  impressed  every  one  who  came  in  contact  with 
him  by  its  austere  and  dignified  simplicity.  It  was 
observed  of  him  that  though  he  never  paraded  his 
acquirements,  yet,  when  asked  for  information,  he 


THE  COALITION  281 

was  never  at  a  loss.  The  most  intimate  friend  of  isss. 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  he  had  been  out  of  office  since 
1846,  and  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  Peelites 
since  1850.  Yet,  staunch  free  trader  as  he  was,  he 
had  acted  with  Lord  Derby  in  resisting,  so  far  as 
the  House  of  Lords  could  resist,  the  universal 
interference  of  Lord  Palmerston.  At  Haddo,  his 
country  house  in  Scotland,  he  was  treated  with 
almost  patriarchal  deference,  and  "  sat  in  the  gate  " 
once  a  week  to  receive  the  complaints  of  his  neigh- 
bours.1 All  the  mental  and  moral  qualifications  of 
a  Prime  Minister  Lord  Aberdeen  had.  But  there 
were  drawbacks.  He  had  never  sat  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  He  spoke  below  his  abilities,  and 
had  no  readiness  in  debate.  He  was  too  much  in 
the  habit  of  thinking  aloud,  and  did  not  sufficiently 
consider  that  it  is  not  always  expedient  to  say  things 
because  one  honestly  believes  them.  A  better  man 
than  Lord  Aberdeen  there  could  hardly  be,  but  his 
strength  was  not  equal  to  his  goodness.  He  ex- 
aggerated the  importance  of  Lord  John  Russell, 
and  suffered  himself  to  be  overborne  by  Lord 
Palmerston.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  sometimes 
too  much  inclined  to  stand  upon  his  dignity.  When 
the  House  of  Lords  assembled  on  the  10th  of 
February,  Lord  Derby  expressed  a  reasonable  desire 
to  know  what  the  business  of  the  session  would  be. 
But  although  Lord  John  Russell  was  actually 
making  such  a  statement  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
Lord  Aberdeen  obstinately  refused  to  say  a  word. 
He  began  his  new  career  with  excellent  prospects. 
Protection  was  dead.  The  Roman  Catholics  felt 
that  Lord  Aberdeen's  Premiership  was  a  guarantee 
against  the  operation  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles 
Act.  The  Church  of  England,  even  High  Church- 
men like  Bishop  Wilberforce,  regarded  Lord 

1  The  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  by  Lord  Stanmore,  p.  189.      Sampson  Low. 
Second  edition. 


282   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  Aberdeen,  Presbyterian  though  he  was,  as  a  friend 
of  the  Church.  On  one  point,  however,  he  dis- 
appointed his  clerical  admirers,  and  his  colleague, 
Mr.  Gladstone.  He  absolutely  declined  to  permit 
the  revival  of  Convocation,  except  for  purely  formal 
business.  His  appointment  of  Mr.  Jackson  to  be 
Bishop  of  Lincoln  was  noticed  even  by  Charles 
Greville,  who  cared  nothing  for  the  Church,  as  a 
welcome  recognition  of  piety  and  efficiency  without 
social  or  political  claims. 

The   Cabinet  was   not  formed   without  bitter 


quarrels  and  dissensions.  The  Whigs  complained 
loudly  that  there  were  too  many  Peelites,  and  Lord 
John,  in  the  intervals  of  fighting  for  himself,  fought 
for  his  friends.  But  the  Peelites  must  be  said  to 
have  conquered.  For  besides  their  ample  repre- 
sentation in  the  Cabinet,  they  had  the  Lord 
Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  Lord  St.  Germans,  and  his 
Chief  Secretary,  Sir  John  Young.  There  was  some 
difficulty  in  filling  the  Woolsack.  Lord  Truro's 
reappointment  was  not  desired,  nor  apparently 
suggested.  Lord  St.  Leonards  had  such  a  high 
professional  reputation  that  there  was  some  thought 
of  retaining  him.  But  this  was  too  great  a  de- 
parture from  precedent,  and  Lord  Cranworth 
receiyed  the  Great  SeaL  Lord  Cranworth,  like  his 
predecessor,  was  not  much  of  a  politician.  But  he 
was  an  excellent  lawyer,  an  accomplished  man 
of  the  world,  and  a  most  agreeable  member  of 
society.  He  was  the  only  Vice-Chancellor  raised 
to  the  Peerage  while  holding  that  office.  The  one 
possible  objection  to  his  appointment  was  that 
it  left  four  pensions  of  five  thousand  a  year  all 
chargeable  upon  the  public  funds.  Their  holders 
were  Lord  Lyndhurst,  Lord  Brougham,  Lord 
Truro,  and  Lord  St.  Leonards.  Lord  St.  Leonards, 
having  been  ten  months  in  office,  drew  his  retiring 
allowance  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century. 


THE  COALITION  283 

The  first   announcement  made  by  Lord  John  1353. 
Russell  in  the  House  of  Commons  was  that  the£eb:10 

. , .  Postpone- 

Reform  Bill  would  be   postponed  till  next  year,  mentor  the 

/>  r  T       .    .  />  i  Reform 

This  was  an  unfortunate  decision,  for  it  was  long  Bil1- 
before  Parliament  had  another  opportunity  of  seri- 
ously considering  the  subject.  It  was,  however,  to 
some  extent  justified  by  the  apathetic  indifference 
of  the  country,  which  the  General  Election  of  the 
previous  summer  had  done  nothing  to  dispel.  The 
chief  business  of  1853  was  financial,  and  very  im- 
portant it  proved.  But  as  early  as  the  15th  of 
February  Mr.  Frederick  Peel,  Under-Secretary  for 
the  Colonies,  introduced  a  Bill  which  raised  in  an 
acute  form  the  question  of  Colonial  independence. 
The  Protestant  clergy  of  Canada  were  paid  from 
the  produce  of  certain  territories  appropriated  to 
that  purpose,  and  known  as  the  Clergy  Reserves.  The 
Being  secured  by  two  Acts  of  Parliament,  passed 
respectively  in  1791  and  1840,  this  land  was  pro- 
nounced  by  the  highest  legal  authority  in  England 
to  be  exempt  from  the  control  of  the  Canadian 
Legislature.  Such  an  exemption  could  not  be 
reconciled  with  the  elementary  principles  of  self- 
government,  and  Mr.  Peel's  Bill  proposed  to  remove 
it  by  enabling  Canada  to  control  her  relations  with 
her  own  Churches.  This  was  the  first  battle-ground 
of  the  Coalition  and  the  Conservative  party,  who, 
having  to  choose  between  the  Church  and  the 
Colonies,  unhesitatingly  chose  the  Church. 

But  before  this  issue  came  to  be  fought  out,  Mr. 
Disraeli,  the  most  dexterous  and  the  least  scrupu- 
lous of  leaders,  endeavoured  to  put  upon  the 
Ministry  a  quarrel  with  France.  During  the 
winter  recess  two  members  of  the  Cabinet,  Sir 
James  Graham  and  Sir  Charles  Wood,  had  expressed 
the  opinions  of  English  gentlemen  upon  the  criminal 
Emperor  of  the  French.  Sir  Charles  Wood  accused  French 
his  Imperial  Majesty  of  having  gagged  the  Press. 


284    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  Sir  James  Graham  with  equal  accuracy  described 
him  as  having  trampled  upon  the  liberties  of  forty 
million  Frenchmen.  Their  speeches  may  have 
been  indiscreet.  But  whatever  harm  they  might 
have  done,  be  it  much  or  little,  was  obviously  and 
greatly  increased  by  the  debate  which  Mr.  Disraeli 
thought  fit  to  raise,  and  the  strenuous  efforts  he 
made  to  prove  that  Ministers  were  the  enemies  of 
the  French  Empire.  Greville  goes  so  far  as  to  say 
that  his  speech  was  one  "  of  devilish  malignity, 
quite  reckless  and  shamelessly  profligate."  With- 
out adopting  that  violent  language  one  may  agree 
that  "the  whole  scope  of  it  was,  if  possible,  to 
envenom  any  bad  feeling  that  might  possibly  exist 
between  France  and  England."  l  But  Mr.  Disraeli's 
reputation  was  in  those  days  such  that  his  perform- 
ance had  no  effect  whatever.  It  was  in  this  debate 
that  Mr.  Cobden  first  used  his  famous  phrase  about 
v°tmg  a  hundred  millions  for  the  Navy.  He  urged, 
with  characteristic  contempt  for  diplomatic  forms, 
that  a  friendly  note  should  be  addressed  to  France 
proposing  joint  disarmament.  If  such  an  overture, 
he  said,  were  rejected  he  would  be  prepared  to  vote 
a  hundred  millions  for  safeguards  against  invasion. 
Cobden  was  a  great  man  and  an  original  thinker. 
But  diplomacy  was  not  one  of  the  things  he  under- 
stood, and  he  failed  to  perceive  that  he  was  playing 
with  edged  tools.  The  unfavourable  reception  of 
such  a  note  would  in  all  probability  have  meant 
war. 

^^  Rejection  of  the  Clergy  Reserves  Bill  was 
moved  by  Sir  John  Pakington,  who  had  been 
Secretary  for  the  Colonies  under  Lord  Derby,  and 
was  regarded  by  some  Conservatives  as  a  more 
creditable  Leader  in  the  House  of  Commons  than 
Mr.  Disraeli.  He  took  his  stand  upon  the  sacred- 
ness  of  ecclesiastical  property,  and  was  answered 

1  "Greville  Memoirs/'  19th  Feb.  185,3. 


THE  COALITION  285 

with  great  power  by  Sir  William  Molesworth,  a  1853. 
true  friend  of  the  Colonies,  who  fully  understood 
their  wishes  and  requirements.  The  Conservatives 
were  strangely  reckless  in  their  resistance  to  this 
measure,  for  the  loss  of  it  would  probably  have 
involved  the  loss  of  Canada.  A  community  which 
cannot  deal  with  its  own  ecclesiastical  establishments 
has  no  constitutional  freedom,  and  an  adverse  vote 
would  have  been  regarded  by  all  Canadians,  French 
and  English  alike,  as  a  distinct  breach  of  faith.  Sir 
William  Molesworth  shocked  the  proprieties  of  the 
Opposition  by  calling  the  Bishop  of  Exeter,  a  con- 
spicuous opponent  of  the  Bill,  the  pest  of  his  diocese. 
But  slight  indeed  was  his  imprudence  compared  with 
that  of  Lord  John  Manners,  who  declared  that  he 
would  rather  see  Canada  independent  than  allow 
her  to  disestablish  her  own  Church.1  The  second 
reading  of  the  Bill  was  carried  by  a  majority  of 
83,  and  the  third  by  a  majority  of  80.  But 
the  opposition  to  it  was  fiercely  renewed  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  where  Lord  Derby  repeated  the 
indiscretion  of  Lord  John  Manners.  The  Duke  of 
Newcastle  had  charge  of  the  Bill,  which  had  really 
been  prepared  by  the  Whig  Government,  and  was 
supported  by  Lord  Grey.  Bishop  Philpotts  of 
Exeter  moved  that  it  be  read  a  second  time  that 
day  six  months,  which  would  in  its  consequences 
have  been  equivalent  to  a  renewal  of  the  Stamp 
Act.  From  this  direct  method  of  warfare  Lord 
Derby  shrank.  But  he  did  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  he  should  prefer  the  dismemberment  of  the 
Empire  to  passing  the  Bill  in  its  present  shape. 
Accordingly  in  committee  he  moved  an  amendment  Lord 
limiting  the  operation  of  the  measure  to  land  not  Tmen 
yet  definitely  set  aside  for  ecclesiastical  purposes,  m 
or,  in  other  words,  to  about  half  the  amount  included 
in  the  previous  Acts.  Worse  tactics  it  would  be 

1  Hansard,  4th  March  1853. 


286    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  difficult  to  imagine,  and  of  course  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle  at  once  pointed  out  that  the  amendment 
would  destroy  the  Bill.  Fortunately  Lord  Aber- 
deen had  a  steady  majority  of  Peers  behind  him, 
and  the  amendment  was  lost  by  117  against  78. 
The  debate  was  signalised  by  an  amusing  episode. 
MdBiXS  The  Bishop  of  Oxford,  who  was  at  that  time  much 
force/  under  the  influence  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  supported  the 
Bill,  and  was  accused  by  Lord  Derby  of  interrupt- 
ing his  speech  by  laughter.  "  I  only  smiled,"  said 
the  Bishop,  whereupon  Lord  Derby  quoted  the 
well-known  line  from  Hamlet,  "  A  man  may  smile 
and  smile  and  be  a  villain."  Lord  Clarendon  took 
up  the  cudgels  for  the  Bishop,  and  there  followed 
between  the  two  lay  statesmen  one  of  those  lively 
verbal  duels  which  illustrate  the  constitutional 
anarchy  of  the  Lords.1  But  it  ended  in  good 
humour,  and  whatever  may  be  thought  of  Lord 
Derby's  taste,  the  felicity  of  the  quotation  is  un- 
deniable.2 After  this  the  Bill  passed,  and  Canadian 
feeling  was  pacified.  It  is  strange  indeed  that 
men  in  the  position  of  Lord  Derby  and  Sir  John 
Pakington  should  have  deliberately  risked  the 
almost  certain  consequences  of  a  hostile  vote. 

After  the  middle  of  February  1853,  when  Lord 
John  Russell  gave  up  the  Foreign  Office  to  Lord 
Leadership  Clarendon,  he  led  the  House  of  Commons  without 
ortice.        holding  any  office  or  receiving  any  salary.     The 
Queen  objected  to  this  arrangement  as  unconstitu- 
tional, and  no  previous  example  could  be  found. 
But  on   constitutional  questions  Lord  John   was 
always   strong,  and  he   argued  with   considerable 
force  that  as  a  Privy  Councillor  he  was  sufficiently 
qualified   to  communicate  confidentially  with  the 

1  The  Lord  Chancellor  and  the  Chairman  of  Committees  have  no 
more  authority  in  the  House  of  Lords  than  any  other  Peer. 

2  The  late  Lord  Kimberley,  who  was  present,  told  me  that  Lord 
Derby  said  " bishop,"  not  "  villain."     But  this  cannot  be  reconciled 
with  the  report  in  Hansard. 


THE  COALITION  287 

Crown.  It  was  no  light  thing  for  him  voluntarily  1853. 
to  surrender  five  thousand  a  year.  Although  his 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  was  one  of  the  richest 
men  in  England,  he  himself  was  one  of  the  poorest 
in  public  life,  and  still  he  could  assure  Mr.  Hume's 
Committee  on  Public  Offices  that  he  had  never  been 
in  debt  until  he  was  Prime  Minister.  It  was  im- 
possible in  the  circumstances  to  reproach  him  with 
the  gratuitous  discharge  of  arduous  functions,  which 
had  never  been  discharged  gratuitously  before.  At 
the  same  time  it  is  a  sound  principle  that  all  should 
be  paid  or  none,  and  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
common  sense  in  the  remonstrances  of  the  Queen. 
Lord  John,  however,  had  his  way,  and  got  through 
the  session  with  credit.  Once  more,  for  the  fourth  The  je* 

"Rill 

time,  he  carried  the  Jew  Bill  through  the  House  of 
Commons.  For  the  fourth  time  the  House  of 
Lords  rejected  it,  following  the  lead  of  Lord 
Shaftesbury  against  Archbishop  Whately  and 
Bishop  Thirlwall,  although  the  Prime  Minister 
pronounced  himself  a  convert  to  the  measure.  Mr. 
Bright  in  the  debate  on  the  third  reading  urged  the 
Government  to  make  it  a  question  of  confidence, 
and  to  resign  if  the  Lords  threw  out  the  Bill. 
But  this  Lord  John  wisely  declined  to  do.  For  in 
the  first  place  he  would  thereby  have  acknowledged 
the  right  of  the  Lords  to  determine  the  fate  of  a 
Government,  and  in  the  second  place  there  was  no 
popular  feeling  behind  this  righteous  movement  for 
justice  to  a  few.  There  was  nothing  to  do  except 
to  wait  until  the  Peers  found  themselves  in  a  better 
frame  of  mind. 

Sir  Charles  Wood's  India  Bill,  introduced  early  The  indu 
in  June,  was  more  fortunate.  At  one  time  it  was 
thought  to  threaten  the  existence  of  the  Ministry. 
Yet  the  second  reading  was  carried  by  a  majority 
of  182.  Radicals  like  Hume,  Cobden,  and  Bright 
objected  to  it  because  it  retained  the  jurisdiction  of 


1853.  the  East  India  Company.  But  it  gave  greater 
authority  to  the  Board  of  Control,  and,  what  was 
far  more  important,  by  opening  Haileybury  it 
brought  the  principle  of  competition  into  the  Civil 
Service  of  India.  Macaulay,  who  rarely  spoke 
after  his  re-election  for  Edinburgh,  supported  it 
with  the  weight  of  his  experience,  and  contributed 
not  a  little  to  its  success.  But  that  was  not  the 

Tog'speech".  greatest  triumph  of  the  historian  in  the  session  of 
1853.  Lord  Hotham's  Bill  for  excluding  the 
Master  of  the  Rolls,  like  other  judges,  from  the 
House  of  Commons  was  making  placid  progress 
towards  the  Statute  Book.  It  had  been  read  a 
second  time  without  a  division,  and  was  considered 
to  have  practically  passed,  when  on  the  1st  of  June, 
by  half  an  hour's  ingenious  sophistry,  Macaulay 
persuaded  the  House  to  throw  it  out.  He  referred 
to  the  example  of  the  Speaker,  to  the  great  Judges 
who  sat  in  the  House  of  Lords,  to  the  able  Re- 
corders and  Chairmen  of  Quarter  Session  who  sat 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  reduced  to 
such  argumentative  straits  that  he  had  to  plead 
for  the  eligibility  of  all  the  Chancery  Judges,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  acquiesce  in  the  exclusion 
of  the  Judges  who  administer  common  law,  on  the 
ground  that  they  might  be  summoned  to  attend 
the  House  of  Lords.  His  eloquence,  however,  pre- 
vailed, and  the  Master  of  the  Rolls  continued  to 
occupy  his  anomalous  position  of  privilege  till 

The  Anti-    1875.     The  odious  system  of  transporting  criminals 

1  ransporta-  i          /^<     i         •  IT-IT-  /> 

tionBui.  to  the  Colonies  was  abolished  in  1853,  except  for 
those  whose  sentences  were  for  fourteen  years  and 
upwards.  This  was  a  measure  forced  upon  the 
Government  by  the  Colonies  themselves,  and  the 
Cabinet  of  Lord  Derby  had  been  quite  prepared  to 
take  it  up.  West  Australia  was  in  fact  the  only  part 
of  the  British  Empire  where  a  cargo  of  convicts 
was  still  welcome.  There  was  no  opposition  except 


THE  COALITION  289 

from  Lord  Campbell  on  behalf  of  the  Judges,  Lord  1353. 
Brougham  on  behalf  of  society,  and  Lord  Grey  on 
his  own.  There  is  something  almost  touching  in 
the  fidelity  with  which  Lord  Grey  clung  to  trans- 
portation. The  alternative  of  penal  servitude  has 
solved  most  of  the  difficulties  which  the  advocates 
of  transportation  predicted  or  foresaw.  But  it  is 
doubtful  whether  long  terms  of  imprisonment  do 
not  tend  rather  to  brutalise  than  to  reform.  In 
1853  the  Constitution  of  Cape  Colony,  which,  The  cap.- 
though  granted  in  1850,  had  been  suspended  on  **. 
account  of  the  Kaffir  War,  was  promulgated,  and 
Sir  George  Russell  Clerk  was  sent  out  to  recognise 
the  independence  of  the  Orange  territory,  or 
rather  to  insist  upon  it.  The  Dutch  farmers  of  the 
Orange  State  were  by  no  means  anxious  for  this  The  orange 
measure.  But  Sir  George  Clerk's  instructions  were 
peremptory,  and  he  obtained  the  reluctant  assent 
of  the  burghers  to  their  own  emancipation,  which 
took  effect  on  the  30th  of  January  1854.  Thus 
the  three  successive  Governments  of  Lord  John 
Russell,  Lord  Derby,  and  Lord  Aberdeen,  had 
adopted  the  principle  of  compressing  the  Queen's 
sovereignty  in  South  Africa  within  the  narrowest 
possible  limits.  On  the  20th  of  August,  the  day 
of  the  prorogation,  the  Royal  Assent  was  given 
to  the  Charitable  Trusts  Bill  and  the  Bill  for  re- 
stricting children's  hours  of  labour  in  factories. 
This  latter  Bill,  which  Lord  Palmerston  had  The 
contrived  to  carry  without  division,  amendment,  Facto"11' 
or  debate,  simply  provided  that  children  should 
not  work  in  factories  before  six  in  the  morning 
or  after  six  in  the  evening.  It  was  a  necessary 
complement  to  the  Act  of  1850,  which  applied 
to  women  and  young  persons,  but  not  to  chil- 
dren. Lord  Palmerston  suffered  himself  to  be 
guided  in  these  matters  by  Lord  Shaftesbury, 
his  wife's  son-in-law.  But  he  was  himself  what  is 
VOL.  i  u 


290   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  sometimes  derisively  called  a  humanitarian,  and 
the  best  part  of  his  character  was  his  life -long 
hatred  of  oppression  when  not  exercised  by  the 
Sultan  of  Turkey  or  the  Emperor  of  the  French. 
charitable  r^ne  Charitable  Trusts  Bill  provided  for  the  ap- 
TrustsBm.  pointment  of  four  Charity  Commissioners,  two  of 
them  barristers  of  twelve  years'  standing,  to  inquire 
into  the  management  of  charities  in  England  and 
Wales.  The  Commissioners  were  empowered  to 
frame  new  schemes  and  to  vary  the  provisions  of 
trust  deeds  when  these  were  no  longer  in  accord- 
ance with  the  public  interest.  Few  statutes  have 
been  more  wisely  framed  or  have  proved  of  greater 
public  utility. 

Lord  John  Russell,  always  zealous  in  the  cause 
of  education,  introduced  on  the  14th  of  April  an 
elaborate  measure,  which  for  the  first  time  recog- 
nised the  principle  of  a  municipal  rate  in  aid  of 
elementary  teaching.  But  this  Bill  was  quietly 
dropped,  and  nothing  more  was  heard  of  it.  The 
Parliamentary  honours  of  the  session  belonged  to 
Gladstone's  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  Mr.  Gladstone's 
Budget.  first  Budget  was  introduced  on  the  18th  of  April 
in  a  speech  five  hours  long,  which  could  not  well 
have  been  compressed.  This  wonderful  statement 
fascinated  the  attention  of  the  Committee  when  it 
was  delivered,  and  has  ranked  ever  since  as  a 
financial  masterpiece.  Mr.  Gladstone  was  then 
forty-three  years  old.  He  had  come  very  early 
into  public  life,  and  was  a  Cabinet  Minister  in  his 
thirty -fourth  year.  At  the  Board  of  Trade  he 
had  been  an  invaluable  assistant  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  and  his  conversion  to  free  trade  was  no  less 
complete  than  his  master's.  After  Peel's  death 
he  transferred  his  allegiance  to  Lord  Aberdeen, 
except  in  Italian  politics.  For  he  was  an  ardent 
sympathiser  with  the  independence  of  Italy, 
whereas  Lord  Aberdeen  stood  by  the  Treaty  of 


THE  COALITION  291 

Vienna.  Otherwise  he  was  not  less  opposed  than  1853. 
the  Prime  Minister  himself  to  the  meddlesome 
diplomacy  of  Lord  Palmerston.  He  still  called 
himself  a  Conservative,  and  was  anxious  to  cleanse 
the  Conservative  cause  from  the  taint  of  Protec- 
tion. But  in  finance  he  was  a  zealous  reformer, 
as  well  he  might  be,  for  after  six  years  of  Sir 
Charles  Wood  the  Treasury  was  an  Augean  stable. 
His  grave  and  dignified  eloquence,  set  off  by  the 
rich,  deep  tones  of  his  flexible  and  melodious  voice, 
had  given  him  a  high  and  influential  position  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  In  the  country,  despite  the 
unpopularity  of  his  Anglo-Catholic  doctrines,  he  was 
respected  for  his  high  character  and  moral  earnest- 
ness. In  helping  to  prepare  the  famous  Budget  of 
1842,  the  precursor  of  free  trade,  he  had  learned  all 
the  technicalities  of  finance  and  commerce.  His 
physical  and  mental  vigour  were  alike  marvellous. 
One  of  the  ablest  men  who  ever  worked  under  him 
in  the  Civil  Service  declared  that  two  hours  with 
Gladstone  tired  him  out.  Thus  admirably  qualified 
for  the  task,  Mr.  Gladstone  set  himself  to  deal 
with  the  great  problem  of  direct  and  indirect 
taxation.  He  was  confronted  at  the  outset  with 
the  question  of  the  Income  Tax,  imposed  in  time 
of  war  by  Mr.  Pitt,  and  revived  in  time  of  peace 
by  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Renewed  from  year  to  year 
since  1842,  it  had  now  expired.  Could  it  be  dis- 
pensed with  altogether  ?  In  his  consideration  of  it 
Mr.  Gladstone  went  back  to  its  origin,  and  showed 
the  enormous  advantages  which  Pitt  had  derived 
from  it  in  the  war  with  France.  He  inferred  that 
as  an  engine  of  taxation  available  in  time  of  war  it 
should  be  carefully  preserved  from  any  encroach-  . 
ments  which  would  destroy  its  power,  such  as  the 
exemption  of  incomes  derived  from  any  particular 
source,  or  the  discrimination  between  one  class  of 
incomes  and  another.  But  it  was  a  war  tax,  not  a 


292    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  peace  tax,  and  ought  therefore  to  be  gradually 
extinguished.  It  had  hitherto  stood  at  sevenpence 
in  the  pound.  Mr.  Gladstone  now  proposed  that 
it  should  be  continued  at  that  rate  for  two  years 
longer.  From  April  1855  to  April  1857  it  would 
be  levied  at  the  rate  of  sixpence  in  the  pound. 
For  the  next  three  years  it  would  be  reduced  to 
fivepence,  and  after  April  1860  it  would  be  entirely 
taken  off.  This  prospective  arrangement  was  of 
course  subject  to  unforeseen  contingencies,  such 
as  in  fact  occurred.  It  would  have  been  well  if 
the  great  financier  had  stopped  there.  But  he 
went  on  to  make  two  subordinate  proposals,  of 
which  one  was  vexatious,  and  both  were  irritating. 
In  1853  the  tax  was  not  levied  on  incomes  of  a 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year  or  less,  which 
was  a  rough  and  ready,  but  effectual,  scheme  of 
exemption  for  the  working  classes.  Mr.  Gladstone 
proposed  arid  carried  the  restriction  of  relief  to 
incomes  of  not  more  than  a  hundred  a  year.  It  is 
true  that  he  at  once  lowered  the  rate  on  these  to 
fivepence  in  the  pound,  and  that  the  tax  has  never 
as  a  fact  been  levied  on  working  men.  But  the 
old  limit,  afterwards  resumed,  was  a  sound  one, 
and  to  tamper  with  it  did  nothing  but  mischief. 
Furthermore,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
brought  Ireland  within  the  scope  of  the  tax.  In 
doing  so  he  displayed  unquestionable  courage. 
For  the  Irish  vote  was  even  then  formidable,  and 
even  the  Ministerial  Whips  did  not  know  what 
the  exact  majority  of  the  Government  was.  But 
though  courageous,  and  what  is  sometimes  called 
just  in  the  abstract,  this  inclusion  of  Ireland  was 
not  wise.  For  it  fostered  that  general  feeling  of 
discontent  which  separates  Ireland,  not  without 
reason,  from  all  other  parts  of  the  British  Empire. 
Ireland  received  a  sort  of  compensation.  The 
debt  incurred  by  her  at  the  time  of  the  famine 


THE  COALITION  293 

was  wiped  out,  and  the  interest  of  this  debt  stood  1853. 
at  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million.     Needless  to  say, 
however,  that  that  sum,  which  should  have  been 
forgiven  in  any  case,  has  been  paid  many  times 
over  in  the  last  century. 

But  the  main  feature  of  the  Budget,  by  which  The  succci 
it  will  always  be  remembered,  was  the  Succession 8U 
Duty.  The  landed  interest  in  the  House  of 
Commons  had  been  strong  enough  in  the  days  of 
Pitt  to  exempt  land  and  houses  held  by  freehold 
tenure  from  the  tax  payable  at  death  upon  legacies 
of  personal  property.  This  unfair  immunity  Mr. 
Gladstone  now  abolished  ;  he  also  made  personalty 
passing  by  settlement  liable  to  the  tax,  and  for- 
tunately Lord  Aberdeen  had  strength  enough  in  the 
House  of  Lords  to  carry  the  Bill.  The  Succession 
Duty  fell  short  for  some  years  of  the  two  millions 
at  which  Mr.  Gladstone  estimated  it.  But  it 
established  an  equitable  principle,  and  removed  a 
sense  of  injustice  from  the  minds  of  the  manu- 
facturing classes.  Some  indirect  taxes  were  also 
by  this  great  Budget  repealed.  Of  these  the  worst 
was  the  Soap  Tax,  a  scandal  to  a  civilised  com- 
munity. But,  besides  that,  more  than  a  hundred 
articles  of  food,  including  apples,  were  set  free 
from  duty.  The  tea  duty,  which  pressed  with 
great  severity  upon  the  poor,  and  almost  deprived 
them  of  that  incomparable  beverage,  was  reduced 
by  gradual  stages  to  a  shilling  in  the  pound.  On 
one  point  the  hand  of  the  Government  was  forced. 
Four  days  before  the  Budget  was  brought  in  Mr. 
Milner  Gibson,  the  colleague  of  Mr.  Bright  in  the 
representation  of  Manchester,  had  carried,  with  the 
help  of  the  Tories,  a  motion  for  the  repeal  of  the  duty 
on  advertisements  in  newspapers.  Mr.  Gladstone  so  Repeal  of 
far  yielded  as  to  propose  that  it  should  be  reduced  tisement1" 
from  eighteenpence  to  sixpence.  But  this  did  not  ^ 
satisfy  Mr.  Gibson  and  his  friends,  who  again  beat 


294   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1863.  the  Government  in  Committee,  and  the  sixpence 
followed  the  shilling.  The  immediate  effect  of 
this  alleviation  was  greatly  to  increase  the  power 
of  the  Times  and  the  wealth  of  its  proprietors. 

Otherwise  the  Budget  passed  substantially  as 
it  was  brought  in.  Sir  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton, 
who  did  many  things,  and  all  of  them  well,  led 
the  opposition  to  the  Income  Tax  in  a  speech 
eloquent  as  all  his  speeches  were.  But  he  was 
beaten  by  71,  and  the  Irish  got  very  little  support 
except  from  Sir  Francis  Baring.  It  is  now  known 
that  before  Mr.  Gladstone  produced  his  financial 
scheme  to  the  House  of  Commons  he  had  to 
convert  his  colleagues  in  the  Cabinet,  and  that  he 
addressed  them  on  the  subject  for  three  hours. 
With  the  active  and  loyal  assistance  of  Lord 
Aberdeen  he  succeeded  in  that  preliminary  effort. 
His  subsequent  labours  in  the  House  of  Commons 
exhausted  even  a  frame  as  strong  as  his,  and  at  the 
close  of  his  life  he  said  that  never  again  did  he  feel 
any  work  so  burdensome.  But  it  was  not  without 
result  for  himself  as  well  as  for  the  country.  His 
financial  reputation  was  henceforth  without  a  rival. 
His  speech,  or  spoken  pamphlet,  was  pronounced 
superior  to  any  of  Peel's,  and  comparable  only  to 
the  great  economic  treatise  with  which  Pitt  un- 
folded his  Budget  in  1798.  Sir  Stafford  Northcote, 
in  his  Twenty  Years  of  Financial  Policy,  gently 
remonstrates  with  his  old  chief  for  not  perceiving 
in  April  1853  that  the  peace  of  Europe  was  likely 
to  be  disturbed,  and  that  England  would  be  drawn 
into  the  quarrel.  But  even  if  this  remote  possi- 
bility, as  it  then  seemed,  had  been  a  reasonable 
probability,  there  would  have  been  nothing  unsound 
in  Mr.  Gladstone's  Budget.  On  the  contrary, 
A  Budget  of  though  it  was  a  Budget  of  peace,  it  made  provision 

P;'UCG  with  ^ 

for  war.     Admitting  the  truth  of  much  that  was 
said  about  the  inquisitorial  character  of  the  Income 


THE  COALITION  295 

Tax,  acknowledging  the  opportunities  which  it 
gave  for  fraud,  and  even  illustrating  them  by  a 
flagrant  example  which  had  come  within  his  own 
experience,  Mr.  Gladstone  nevertheless  insisted 
with  eloquence  and  with  emphasis  upon  the 
necessity  for  retaining  the  tax.  Why?  Because 
it  was  an  inestimable  resource  in  time  of  war.  A 
war  Budget  in  1853  would  have  been  impossible, 
and  even  absurd.  It  would  have  led,  among  other 
things,  to  foreign  complications,  and  would  have 
fostered  the  very  evil  against  which  diplomacy  had 
to  guard.  The  objection  which  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote  takes  was  not  taken  at  the  time.  The 
whole,  or  almost  the  whole,  of  his  party  divided 
against  the  continuance  of  the  Income  Tax,  thus 
showing  a  far  more  robust  faith  in  peace  than  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer's.  The  Succession 
Duty  was  bitterly  attacked,  and  the  Bishops, 
strange  as  it  may  seem  now,  incurred  extensive 
unpopularity  in  the  Church  by  voting  for  it  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  They  were  wiser  than  their 
critics,  and  no  serious  attempt  was  ever  made  to 
upset  the  Budget  of  1853.  Circumstances,  not 
indeed  beyond  human  control,  but  beyond  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer's,  destroyed  his 
arrangement  for  the  reduction  and  extinction  of 
the  Income  Tax.  For  those  circumstances  he 
provided,  though  he  did  not  assume  that  they 
would  arise.  But  the  main  principle  of  his  Budget 
was  that  real  and  personal  property  should  con- 
tribute their  due  proportion  to  the  revenue  when 
they  changed  hands  by  death.  If  above  and  beyond 
that  he  maintained  a  source  from  which  the  ex- 
penses of  war  could  be  defrayed,  he  is  not  liable  to 
reproach  because  he  dealt  with  the  facts  of  the  day 
rather  than  with  the  contingencies  of  the  morrow. 

It  was  Mr.  Gladstone  who  procured  the  appoint- 
ment  this  year  of  the  first  Civil  Service  Commission. reform' 


296   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  The  Commissioners  were  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan, 
of  the  Treasury,  and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  then 
member  for  Stamford,  the  head  of  an  old  Devon- 
shire family,  afterwards  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer and  Leader  of  the  Conservative  party  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  The  Commissioners 
reported  in  favour  of  open  competition  for  the 
Civil  Service  at  home,  such  as  Parliament  had 
enacted  for  India.  But  official  opposition,  Whig  as 
well  as  Tory,  was  intensely  bitter,  and  it  was  years 
before  the  recommendations  of  the  Report  were 
even  partially  carried  out.  As  Sir  George  Trevelyan 
says,  "  It  was  one  thing  for  them  [our  leading  poli- 
ticians] to  deprive  the  East  India  directors  of  their 
patronage,  and  quite  another  to  surrender  their 
own."1 

But  though  the  honours  of  the  session  fell  to 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  the  services  of 
the  Home  Secretary  are  only  less  worthy  of  com- 
on  memoration  than  his.  Lord  Palmerston  has  been 
oak*.  accused  of  neglecting  the  Home  Office  for  the 
superior  attractions  of  foreign  affairs.  The  charge 
is  altogether  unjust.  He  was  so  active,  quick,  and 
zealous  that  he  could  watch  every  move  in  the 
diplomatic  game  without  failing  in  any  of  the 
humbler  duties  which  lay  nearer  at  hand.  He 
soon  learnt  the  art  of  receiving  deputations,  which 
when  he  was  at  the  Foreign  Office  he  said  that  he 
did  not  understand,  and  in  those  days  deputations 
to  the  Home  Office  included  not  merely  Members 
of  Parliament,  but  also  Colonels  of  Militia.  He 
looked  into  the  administration  of  justice,  and  pro- 
vided for  the  more  frequent  trials  of  prisoners  by 
means  of  Winter  Assizes.  His  amendment  of  the 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Lord  Macaukiy,  vol.  ii.  p.  383.  Sir  Charles 
Trevelyan  and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  are  the  respective  originals  of 
Sir  Gregory  Hardlines  and  Sir  Warwick  Westend  in  Anthony  Trollope's 
amusing  novel  The  Three  Clerks. 


THE  COALITION  297 

Factory  Acts  for  the  benefit  of  children,  already 
noticed,  was  not  the  only  Bill  he  carried  in  1853.    At 
that  time  there  were  frequent  epidemics  of  cholera, 
and  Lord  Palmerston  took  up  in  earnest  the  cause 
of  sanitary  reform.      He  enforced  with  impartial 
rigour  the  law  of  1850  against  intramural  inter-  fnchi1 
ments,  and  the  closure  of  burial  grounds  which  had 
become  dangerous  to  health.     He  administered  a  HIS  letter 
wholesome  dose  of  common  sense  to  the  Presbytery  Presbytery 
of  Edinburgh  when  that  body  suggested  a  national 


fast  on  account  of  the  cholera.  "The  Maker  ofc 
the  universe,"  he  replied,  "  has  established  certain 
laws  of  nature  for  the  planet  in  which  we  live,  and 
the  weal  or  woe  of  mankind  depends  upon  the 
observance  or  neglect  of  those  laws.  One  of  those 
laws  connects  health  with  the  absence  of  those 
gaseous  exhalations  which  proceed  from  over- 
crowded human  beings  or  from  decomposing  sub- 
stances, whether  animal  or  vegetable,  and  those 
same  laws  render  sickness  the  almost  inevitable 
consequence  of  exposure  to  those  noxious  in- 
fluences. But  it  has  at  the  same  time  pleased 
Providence  to  place  it  within  the  power  of  man  to 
make  such  arrangements  as  will  prevent  or  disperse 
such  exhalations  so  as  to  render  them  harmless, 
and  it  is  the  duty  of  man  to  attend  to  those  laws 
of  nature,  and  to  exert  the  faculties  which  Provi- 
dence has  thus  given  to  man  for  his  own  welfare." 
He  went  on  to  urge  with  energy  and  gravity  the 
obligation  of  purifying  towns,  especially  those 
parts  of  them  inhabited  by  the  poorest  classes. 
The  "  unco  guid "  on  both  sides  of  the  Tweed 
attacked  this  letter  as  irreligious,  and  even  profane. 
But  Lord  Shaftesbury,  whose  theological  orthodoxy 
could  not  be  impugned,  had  the  discernment  to 
perceive  that,  whatever  might  be  Palmerston's 
personal  beliefs,  he  was  here  expressing  the  views 
of  all  educated  and  practical  Christians.  It  was 


298    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  Lord  Palmerston  who  passed  the  first  of  the  Acts 
compelling  factories  to  burn  their  own  smoke,  and 
he  was  zealous  in  promoting  the  diversion  of 
sewage  from  the  Thames.  It  would  have  been 
difficult  for  a  Home  Secretary  to  do  more  if  he 
had  not  known  the  relative  positions  of  the 
Bosphorus  and  the  Dardanelles. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE   EASTERN    QUESTION 

IN  1853  there  were  three  men  who  controlled  1853. 
the  destinies  of  Europe.  One  was  the  Emperor 
Nicholas,  the  religious,  ambitious  head  of  a  semi- 
civilised  and  yet  thoroughly  Christian  State,  who, 
in  the  minds  even  of  sober  statesmen,  threatened 
to  dominate  the  Continental  system  and  become 
the  arbiter  of  Europe.  Another  was  the  Emperor 
Napoleon,  raised  by  violent  means  to  a  dizzy 
height,  and  looking  about  for  a  guarantee  against 
imminent  disaster.  The  third  was  Lord  Palmer- 
ston,  who,  without  neglecting  the  affairs  of  the  Home 
Office,  continued  to  exercise  in  the  Cabinet  a  pre- 
dominant influence  upon  foreign  affairs.  Palmer- 
ston  hated  Russia,  and  had  forfeited  his  favourite 
post  of  Foreign  Secretary  by  his  impulsive  patron- 
age of  Louis  Napoleon.  It  was  his  object  to 
combine  with  France  against  Russia,  and  when 
Palmerston  had  once  taken  up  a  question  no 
earthly  power  would  make  him  drop  it.  Thus  the 
political  atmosphere  was  dark  and  lowering,  inso- 
much that  it  seemed  as  if  the  thirty -eight  years' 
peace  were  coming  to  an  end. 

During  Lord  John  Russell's  brief  tenure  of  the  The  be- 
Foreign    Office   in    1853   it  was   his   evil   fate   to  troui.ie  in 
become   entangled   in    the    tortuous    negotiations 
which   led  to  the   Crimean  War.       The  brilliant 
historian  of  that  glorious  and  disastrous  campaign 

299 


300   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  has  justly  fixed  responsibility  for  the  breach  of 
European  peace  upon  the  man  of  December. 
"There  was  repose,"  says  Mr.  Kinglake,  "in  the 
Empire  of  the  Sultan,  and  even  the  rival  Churches 
of  Jerusalem  were  suffering  each  other  to  rest, 
when  the  French  President,  in  cold  blood,  and 
under  no  new  motive  for  action,  took  up  the  for- 
gotten cause  of  the  Latin  Church  of  Jerusalem 
and  began  to  apply  it  as  a  wedge  for  sundering  the 
peace  of  the  world."1  Men  do  not,  as  a  rule, 
LOUIS  act  without  motives,  and  Louis  Napoleon's  motive 

Napoleon's  ,       .  i  TT  •*•       -.  , 

intcrfer-  was  obvious  enough.  He  was  under  a  heavy 
obligation  to  the  Church  of  France,  which  had 
welcomed  him  and  his  accomplices  with  public 
thanksgivings  in  the  Church  of  Our  Lady,  the 
Mother  of  Christ.  The  neighbouring  Morgue  had 
been  a  fitter  place.  As  a  token  of  his  gratitude  he 
pressed  upon  the  Sultan  the  claims  of  Roman 
Catholicism  to  the  guardianship  of  the  Holy  Places 

position  of  at  Jerusalem.  The  position  of  the  Sultan,  if  not 
the  Sultan  himself,  deserved  some  pity.  For  he 
was,  in  our  English  vernacular,  between  the  devil 
and  the  deep  sea.  If  he  decided  one  way  he  would 
offend  France.  If  he  decided  the  other  way  he 
would  offend  Russia,  and  Russia  meant  the  Emperor 
Nicholas.  The  Sultan,  Abdul  Medjid,  though 
nominally  an  absolute  sovereign,  was  really  a 
puppet  in  the  hands  of  others.  Enervated  by 
premature  debauchery  and  addicted  to  drink,  he 
counted  for  nothing,  or  next  to  nothing,  in  the 
conduct  of  affairs.  The  Emperor  of  Russia,  on  the 
other  hand,  though  he  had  a  very  able  Chancellor 
in  Count  Nesselrode,  was  not  only  the  Head  of  the 
State,  but  the  State  itself.  He  had  been  nearly 
thirty  years  on  the  throne,  and  was  an  autocrat 
of  the  most  uncompromising  type.  Although  his 

1  Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the  Crimea  down  to  the  Death  of  Lord  Raglan, 
vol.  i.  p.  441.     First  Edition. 


personal  character  was  not  stainless,  the  simplicity  1353. 
of  his  domestic  life  increased  the  veneration  of  the        c 


Russian  peasants  for  the  object  of  their  religious 

11  .  i  !•••       i       11       •  T-*          .  • 

laith  as  well  as  their  political  allegiance.  Jb  anati- 
cally  orthodox  and  conservative,  an  enemy  of  all 
reform,  ecclesiastical  or  secular,  his  power  had  been 
quite  unshaken  by  the  revolutions  of  1848.  There 
is  no  reason  for  doubting  that  within  his  judgment, 
which  was  narrow,  and  by  his  lights,  which  were 
dim,  he  sincerely  desired  the  good  of  Russia  and 
her  Church.  It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  he 
would  tolerate  the  interference  of  the  French 
Republic  in  Turkey,  where  the  rights  of  his  co- 
religionists were  concerned.  The  responsibility  of 
Louis  Napoleon,  which  in  subsequent  stages  of  the 
dispute  seemed  to  be  quite  forgotten,  was  clearly 
and  unmistakably  declared  by  Lord  John  Russell  Lord  joi 
while  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs.  "  The  saddie 
Ambassador  of  France,"  he  said,  "  was  the  first  to  *&£? 
disturb  the  status  quo  in  which  the  matter  rested. 
Not  that  the  disputes  of  the  Latin  and  Greek 
Churches  were  not  very  active,  but  that  without 
some  political  action  on  the  part  of  France  those 
quarrels  would  never  have  troubled  the  relations  of 
friendly  Powers.  If  report  is  to  be  believed,  the 
French  Ambassador  was  the  first  to  speak  of  having 
recourse  to  force,  and  to  threaten  the  intervention 
of  a  French  fleet  to  enforce  the  demands  of  his 
country."  And  then  Lord  John  proceeded  to  the 
use  of  language  which  a  man  of  his  religious  nature 
cannot  have  employed  lightly,  and  which  must 
have  given  him  strange  sensations  if  he  ever  re- 
called it  in  after  years.  "  We  should  deeply  regret," 
he  wrote  in  the  name  of  the  Cabinet,  "  any  dispute 
that  might  lead  to  conflict  between  two  of  the 
great  Powers  of  Europe,  but  when  we  reflect  that 
the  quarrel  is  for  exclusive  privileges  in  a  spot  near 
which  the  heavenly  host  proclaimed  peace  on  earth 


302   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  and  goodwill  towards  men,  when  we  see  rival 
Churches  contending  for  mastery  in  the  very  place 
where  Christ  died  for  mankind,  the  thought  of  such 
a  spectacle  is  melancholy  indeed." * 

The  actual  subject  of  dispute  cannot  be  better 

Jhe  original  defined  than  Kinglake  has  defined  it.2  "  Stated  in 
bare  terms,  the  question  was  whether,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  passing  through  the  building  into  their 
Grotto,  the  Latin  monks  should  have  the  key  of  the 
chief  door  of  the  Church  of  Bethlehem,  and  also 
one  of  the  keys  of  each  of  the  two  doors  of  the 
sacred  Manger,  and  whether  they  should  be  at 
liberty  to  place  in  the  sanctuary  of  the  Nativity  a 
silver  star  adorned  with  the  arms  of  France."  This 
question  had  been  discussed  before  December  1851. 
But  not  until  the  President  had  made  himself 
absolute  ruler  of  France  did  it  become  acute,  for 
M.  de  Lavalette,  the  French  Ambassador,  then,  for 
the  first  time,  received  instructions  to  press  the 
matter  with  energy,  and  because  he  was  not  energetic 
enough  he  was  afterwards  superseded  by  General 

Tempo™-  Baraguay  d'Hilliers.  The  Porte  temporised  as  long 
as  possible.  But  at  the  close  of  1852,  just  as  Lord 
Aberdeen's  Government  was  coming  into  office, 
the  pressure  of  France  prevailed,  the  star  was 
placed  in  the  sanctuary,  and  the  key  was  given  to 
the  Latins.  Count  Nesselrode  strenuously  pro- 
tested against  these  "  violent  proceedings,"  and  two 
corps  of  the  Russian  army  were  despatched  to  the 
frontier  of  the  Danubian  Principalities.  These 
Principalities,  Moldavia  and  Wallachia,  were  at 
that  time  under  the  suzerainty  of  the  Porte.  But 
Russia  had  a  joint  right  with  Turkey  to  occupy 
them  in  case  of  disturbance.  There  was  not,  of 
course,  and  there  could  not  be,  any  secret  about 
the  advance  of  the  Russian  troops.  The  situation 

1  Lord  John  Russell  to  Lord  Cowley,  28th  Jan.  1853. 
8  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  i.  p.  46. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION         303 

was  plainly  critical.     It  looked  as  if  Turkey  must  1853. 
be  involved  in  war  with  Russia,  and  as  if  France 
might   come    to    Turkey's    assistance.       In   these 
circumstances  the  Emperor  of  Russia  endeavoured  The  czar 
to  arrive  at  a  friendly  understanding  with  England.  SSanT 
The  good  faith  of  his   overtures  was   afterwards 
doubted,  and  a  belief  in  it  came  to  be  considered 
unpatriotic.      But  for  this  scepticism  there  is  no 
adequate  ground.     The  Emperor  spoke  with  every 
appearance  of  frankness  to  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour, 
the   British   Ambassador   at    Petersburg,    on    the 
14th  of  January  1853.     After  dwelling  upon  the 
necessity  for  harmonious  relations  between  the  two 
Governments,  he  added,  "  When  we  are  agreed  I  ms  conve 
am  quite  without  anxiety  as  to  the  rest  of  Europe  ;  with  sir 
it  is  immaterial  what  the  others  may  think  or  do." 
This  was  common  sense.     The  English  navy  and 
the  Russian  army  could  have  settled  the  Eastern 
question  between  them.    It  should  have  been  the 
first  duty  of  an  English  Minister  to  frame  a  joint 
policy  with  Russia.     To  avoid  all  complicity  in  the 
schemes  of  Louis  Napoleon  should  have  been  his 
second.     The  Czar  further  told  Sir  Hamilton  that 
the  "sick  man,"  as  he  had  long  before  called  Turkey, 
was  dying,  and  that  the  arrangements  for  disposing 
of  his  property  should  at  once  be  made.     He  re- 
curred to  this  subject  about  a  fortnight  later,  and 
referred  with  great  frankness  to  claims  far  larger 
than  the  control  of  images  and  shrines.     "  In  the 
Turkish    Empire,"    he    said,    "there    are    several 
millions   of  Christians   [about   twelve]   whose   in- 
terests I  am  called  upon  to  watch  over,  while  the 
right  of  doing  so  is  secured  to  me  by  Treaty."    The 
reference  was  to  the  Treaty  of  1774,  the  Treaty  of 
Kainardji,   and  the  right  which  the  Czar  claimed 
was  then  in  dispute.     It  is  true  that  the  treaty 
only  contained  a  promise  on  behalf  of  the  Porte. 
But  Mr.  Gladstone  afterwards  argued,  with  con- 


304    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  siderable  force,  that  a  promise  in  a  treaty  is  a 
specific  engagement,  which  the  party  making  it 
maybe  required  to  fulfil.  On  the  21st  of  February 
the  Czar  went  further,  much  further,  than  he  had 
gone  before.  Repeating  that  the  dissolution  of  the 
Turkish  Empire  was  imminent,  he  proceeded  as 
follows  : — "  The  Principalities  are,  in  fact,  an  inde- 
pendent State  under  my  protection.  This  might 
so  continue.  Servia  might  receive  the  same  form 
of  Government.  So  again  with  Bulgaria ;  there 
seems  to  be  no  reason  why  this  province  should  not 
form  an  independent  State.  As  to  Egypt,  I  can 
quite  understand  the  importance  to  England  of 
that  territory.  I  can  then  only  say,  that  if  in  the 
event  of  a  distribution  of  the  Ottoman  succession 
upon  the  fall  of  the  Empire,  you  should  take  pos- 
session of  Egypt,  I  shall  have  no  objection  to  offer. 
I  would  say  the  same  thing  of  Candia.1  That 
island  might  suit  you,  and  I  do  not  know  why  it 
should  not  become  an  English  possession."  Sir 
Hamilton  Seymour  replied,  in  terms  which  have  a 
strange  look  now,  that  England  had  no  interest  in 
Egypt  beyond  securing  the  means  of  communica- 
tion with  India. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Czar  in  this  conversa- 

The  tank    tion  was  otherwise  than  perfectly  straightforward. 

Nicholas.  Blunt  he  may  have  been,  to  the  verge  of  cynicism. 
Deceitful  he  certainly  was  not.  Nor  is  there  any 
reason  to  doubt  that  the  Ottoman  Empire  in 
Europe  would  soon  have  broken  up,  unless  it 
had  been  artificially  supported  from  without. 
When  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour's  despatches,  con- 
taining the  Czar's  proposals,  were  laid  before 
Parliament  a  year  afterwards,  there  was  a  storm  of 
indignation  against  the  alleged  perfidy  of  Russia. 
But  by  that  time  the  feeling  of  the  British 
public  had  been  so  exasperated  by  articles  in 

1  Crete. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION         305 

the  Press  that  mere  argument  was  useless,  and  only  1353. 
invective  was  in  demand.  To  the  Prime  Minister 
there  was  nothing  strange  in  what  the  Czar  said. 
He  had  heard  it  all,  or  most  of  it,  when  he  was 
Foreign  Secretary  in  1844.  So  had  Sir  Robert 
Peel.  Count  Nesselrode's  Memorandum,  which 
was  laid  before  Parliament  in  1854,  embodied  the 
results  of  what  passed  between  the  Emperor 
Nicholas  and  the  British  Government  when  His 
Majesty  visited  England  ten  years  before.  Both 
parties  then  distinctly  recognised  that  the  future  of 
Turkey  was  a  question  for  Great  Britain  and  Russia 
to  decide.  They  agreed  that  the  dissolution  of 
Turkey  might  occur  at  any  time,  and  that,  if  it 
did,  they  should  act  in  common.  To  Lord  Aber- 
deen, therefore,  the  Czar's  language  must  have 
seemed  perfectly  reasonable  and  natural.1 

Before  Lord  John  left  the  Foreign  Office,  he 
took  a  momentous  step.  He  sent  Lord  Stratford 
de  Redcliffe  back  to  Constantinople.  This  was  not 
a  new  appointment.  But  Lord  Stratford  had  been 
absent  from  his  post  for  nearly  two  years,  and  a 
further  extension  of  his  leave  would  have  been 
favourable  to  the  peace  of  the  world.  He  received 
his  first  instructions  after  his  return  from  Lord 
Clarendon.  But  it  was  Lord  John  who  wrote  to 
Sir  Hamilton  Seymour  on  the  9th  of  February 
upon  the  subject  of  Sir  Hamilton's  first  two  con- Lord  John 
versations  with  the  Czar.  He  testified  neither  «ti*> 
anger  nor  astonishment.  The  Emperor  Nicholas  °v 

1  Lord  Malmesbury's  assertion  (Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister,  vol.  i.  p. 
402)  that  the  Emperor  Nicholas,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
and  Lord  Aberdeen,  drew  up  and  signed  in  1844  a  secret  Memorandum 
recognising  the  Russian  Protectorate  of  Greek  Christians  in  Turkey 
has  been  authoritatively  contradicted  by  Lord  Stanmore,  is  opposed 
to  all  the  evidence,  and  cannot  be  true.  Lord  Malmesbury's  book, 
however  amusing  as  a  commentary,  is  most  dangerous  as  a  guide. 
Though  in  the  form  of  a  diary,  it  is  not  really  a  diary  at  all.  Many  of 
the  entries  must  have  been  made  long  after  the  dates  assigned  to  them, 
and  sometimes  the  same  event  is  assigned  to  more  dates  than  one. 

i 


306    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  had  disclaimed  all  idea  of  adding  Constantinople  to 
his  dominions,  though  he  guarded  himself  by  the 
somewhat  ambiguous  remark  that  he  might  have  to 
occupy  it  for  a  time.  This  was  the  only  phrase  of 
His  Majesty's  which  could  excite  any  suspicion, 
and  it  did  not  excite  Lord  John's.  He  simply  said 
that  the  Queen's  Government  had  no  designs  upon 
Constantinople,  and  would  not  act  without  the 
cognisance  of  Russia,  whose  protection  of  the  Greek 
Christians  was,  he  added  in  words  not  soon  forgotten, 
"  prescribed  by  duty,  and  sanctioned  by  treaty." x 
But  he  deprecated  any  secret  arrangement  between 
England  and  Russia  without  the  sanction  of  the 
other  Powers.  This  was  an  indirect  refusal  of 
the  Czar's  overtures,  and  was  regarded  by  him 
as  a  rebuff,  which  he  neither  forgot  nor  forgave. 
It  was  in  strict  accordance  with  diplomatic 
propriety.  It  did  nothing  to  preserve  the  peace 
of  Europe. 
The  three  The  three  statesmen  who  most  detested  the  Czar 

enemies  ol     _  _.    ..  .^  .^ 

Nicholas.  Nicholas  were  the  trench  Emperor,  Lord  Palmer- 
ston,  and  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe.  Lord 
Palmerston  deeply  resented  the  Russian  protest 
against  his  treatment  of  Greece.  The  Emperor 
had  refused  to  receive  Lord  Stratford,  then  Sir 
Stratford  Canning,  as  Ambassador  at  St.  Peters- 
burg. He  had  declined  to  address  the  French 
Emperor  as  Mbnjrdre,  though  all  the  other  Sove- 
reigns in  Europe  had  done  so.  Louis  Napoleon 
felt  this  slight  with  peculiar  bitterness,  because  he 
had  failed  to  ally  himself  in  marriage  with  any 
Mwjjfrge  <>*  Royal  house.  Euge'nie  de  Montijo,  whom  he 
Ene.peronrc  married  on  the  29th  of  January  1853,  was  a  lady  of 
remarkable  beauty,  and  singular  personal  charm. 
But  she  was  not  born  in  the  purple,  and  in  an- 
nouncing his  engagement  with  her  to  the  French 
nation,  the  Emperor  made  the  mistake  of  alluding 

1  Lord  John  Russell  to  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour,  9th  Feb.  1853. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION         307 

to  his  own  position  de  parvenu.  After  his  honey- 1353. 
moon  he  proceeded  to  business.  On  the  8th  of 
March,  more  than  a  month  before  Lord  Stratford's 
arrival,  Colonel  Rose,  afterwards  Lord  Strathnairn, 
then  in  charge  of  the  Embassy,  applied  to  Vice- 
Admiral  Dundas,  the  British  officer  commanding 
in  the  Mediterranean,  and  asked  him  to  make  a 
naval  demonstration  in  Besika  Bay  for  the  pro- 
tection of  Constantinople.  The  Admiral  very 
properly  refused  to  do  anything  of  the  kind  with- 
out positive  instructions  from  home.  Then  the 
French  Emperor  saw  his  chance.  He  wanted  war, 
and  he  wanted  to  drag  England  into  war  after 
him.  Pretending  to  believe,  as  Colonel  Rose  did 
believe,  that  Russia  was  about  to  attack  Constanti- 
nople, he  ordered  to  Smyrna  the  French  fleet  at  Despatch  ot 

mi  mi_  •  •    j         J    J  J  the  French 

1  oulon.      1  his  was  intended  as  a  menace,  and  was  fleet  to 
a  decisive  step  in  the  direction   of  war.     Even  if  r 
Constantinople  had  been  threatened,  these  French 
ships  would  have  been  useless,  for,  as  Sir  Baldwin 
Walker,  the  senior  Sea  Lord,  informed  the  Cabinet, 
a  Russian  force  could  easily  land  at  a  point  near  the 
entrance  to  the  Bosphorus,  within  twenty  miles  of 
the  Turkish  capital. 

Lord    Stratford   arrived    in    Constantinople   on  LOM  strat- 

j-T.  ford  de 

the  5th  April,  a  month  after  the  Czar  s  emissary, 
Prince  Mentschikoff.  He  had  been  the  diplo- 
matic representative  of  England  there  during  the 
Russian  campaign  of  the  first  Napoleon.  He 
had  become  in  one  sense  more  Turkish  than 
the  Turks,  for  he  considered  that  he  had  the 
exclusive  right  to  advise  the  Sultan.  The  Sultan's 
Ministers  were  Lord  Stratford's  tools.  When- 
ever the  name  or  title  of  the  Sultan  is  used  in 
describing  the  negotiations  held  between  Russia 
and  Turkey  at  Constantinople,  it  must  be  under- 
stood that  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe  is  meant. 
Lord  Clarendon's  instructions  to  the  Ambassador 


308   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  did  not  mention  Russia ;  but  in  a  strain  of  grave 
and  dignified  warning  he  pointed  out  the  "  position 
of  peculiar  danger  "  to  which  the  Ottoman  Empire 
had  been  brought  by  gross   and   continuous   mis- 
Lord         government.       "Nor,"   wrote    the    new    Foreign 
fl'rtten'    "Secretary,  "  will  you  disguise  from  the  Sultan  and 
despatch.    j^  j\|mjsters  that  perseverance  in  his  present  course 
must  end  in  alienating  the  sympathies  of  the  British 
nation,  and  making  it  impossible  for  Her  Majesty's 
Government  to  shelter  them  from  the  impending 
danger,  or  to  overlook  the  exigencies  of  Christen- 
dom, exposed  to  the  natural  consequences  of  their 
unwise  policy,  and  reckless  administration." l     Lord 
sSadtford's   Stratford  took  no  more  notice  of  this  despatch  than 
reception    jf  it  had  been  a  leading  article  in  an  Opposition 
newspaper.     From  the  moment  of  his  arrival  he  set 
himself  to  checkmate  the  Russian.     This  he  had 
little   difficulty   in    doing.     There  was   a   Russian 
statesman,  Prince  Orloff,  who  could  have  met  Lord 
Stratford  on  more  nearly  equal  terms  ;  but  he  was 
too  pacific  for  the  Czar,  who  was  bent  on  enforcing 
prince       the  submission    of  Turkey.     Prince  Mentschikoff 
koeff.  (       was  one  of  the  worst  diplomatists,  as  he  afterwards 
proved  to  be  one  of  the  worst  generals,  that  Russia 
ever  produced.      He   thought  that   he   could   do 
everything   by   swagger,    and   by   frightening   the 
Turk.     He  forgot  that  the  Turk  would  not  be  left 
alone.     Lord    Stratford   knew   all   about   Turkish 
misgovernment,  and  in  writing  home  he  denounced 
it  amply.     But  he  would  not  allow  any  foreigner 
to  say  a  word  against  the  Porte. 

™nof  the        Within  three  weeks  of  his  return  to  his  post, 

Hoiy  Races  Lord  Stratford  had  settled  with  great  diplomatic 

skill   the   question   of  the  Holy  Places.2     In   the 

1  Lord  Clarendon  to  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  26th  Feb.  1853. 

2  "  According  to  the  terms  of  the  arrangement  thus  effected,  the  key 
of  the  Church  of  Bethlehem  and  the  silver  star  placed  in  the  grottos  of 
the  Nativity  were  to  remain  where  they  were,  but  were  to  confer  no 
new  right  on  the  Latins,  and  the  door-keeper  of  the  Church  was  to 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION         309 

hands  of  this  wily  veteran  Prince  Mentschikoffwas  1353. 
like  an  angry  child.     Lord  Stratford  soothed  him, 
and   the  subject  of  the  shrines  disappeared  from 
public  view  for  ever.     But  the  action  of  the  French 
Emperor   had   caused,  as  it  was  meant  to  cause, 
impatience    and    anger    at     Petersburg.       Prince 
Mentschikoff  was  ordered  to  insist  that  the  Porte  Mentschi- 
should  give  a  guarantee  confirming  all  the  privileges  further 
of  the  Greek  Church  in  Turkey.     In  this  there de 
was  nothing  unreasonable,  and  certainly  nothing  to 
surprise  those   who,  like  the   Queen's   Ministers, 
had   been   told   of  the   Czar's  conversations  with 
Sir  Hamilton  Seymour.     The  Emperor  of  Russia 
would   have    preferred   to   arrange   for    this   Pro- 
tectorate in  concert  with  England.     He  had  been 
rebuffed,  and  he  now  demanded  it  alone.     If  left  to 
himself,  the  Sultan  would  probably  have  conceded 
the  demand,  and  an  enormous  amount  of  human 
misery  would  have  been  avoided.     He  was  left  to 
the  British  Ambassador,  and  he  refused  it.     Ontheihesuitans 
21st  of  May  Prince  Mentschikoff  quitted  Constant!-  Mentscm- 
nople   with  his  staff.     The  ground  on  which  the  departure. 
proposed  treaty  was  rejected  is  one  of  the  most 
curious  fictions  in  the  history  of  Europe.     It  was 
called  the  Independence  of  the  Ottoman  Empire. The" imic- 
No  such  thing  as  the  independence  of  the  Ottoman  of  thln 
Empire  existed  in  fact.      Lord  Stratford  himself  Empire" 
was  in  the  habit  of  addressing  the  Court  to  which 
he  was   accredited  in  a  style  which  would   have 
ensured  his   dismissal   from   any   other   European 
capital  within  twenty-four  hours.     Not  one  of  the 
five  great  Powers  would  allow  its  subjects  to  live 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  Turkish   tribunals,  and 
even   subjects   of  the   Sultan   obtained  from   the 
foreign  Embassies  documents  which  shielded  them 

be  a  Greek  priest  as  before,  but  was  to  have  no  right  to  obstruct  other 
nations  in  their  right  to  enter  the  building." — Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the 
Crimea,  vol.  i.  p.  138. 


310   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  from  the  tender  mercies  of  the  Sultan's  judges. 
When  this  figment  of  Turkish  independence  had 
been  constituted,  it  was  further  developed  into  a 
British  interest.  Why  it  was  a  British  interest 
nobody  took  the  trouble  to  explain.  That  was 
an  axiom,  not  a  mere  proposition,  and  therefore 
required  no  proof.  The  familiar  doctrine  known 
The  balance  as  the  balance  of  power  was  more  intelligible. 
For  it  could  at  least  be  argued  that  if  Russia 
acquired  a  right  to  protect  the  Christian  sub- 
jects of  the  Porte  (supposing  her  not  to  have 
such  a  right  already),  her  preponderance  in  the 
east  of  Europe  would  be  excessive.  But  those 
who  thus  reasoned  might  have  remembered  that 
Russia  had  put  down  an  insurrection  in  a  part  of 
the  Austrian  Empire  called  Hungary  without  any 
right  at  all. 

The  departure  of  Prince  Mentschikoff  from 
Constantinople,  baffled  and  defeated  by  the  British 
Ambassador,  brought  Europe  within  sight  of  war. 
ggJ5cto  Public  feeling  in  Great  Britain  ran  strongly  in 
England,  favour  of  Turkey,  and  against  Russia.  Most  Eng- 
lishmen exaggerated  both  the  strength  of  Russia 
and  the  weakness  of  Turkey.  They  saw  a  great 
Power  bullying  a  small  one,  and  their  sympathies 
went  where  the  natural  sympathies  of  Englishmen 
always  go.  The  events  of  1848  and  1849  were 
fresh  in  their  minds.  The  Czar  had  interfered 
where  he  had  no  business,  and  he  had  interfered 
on  the  wrong  side.  He  had  put  down  the 
Hungarians,  who  would  otherwise  have  obtained 
their  independence  from  Austria.  He  had  joined 
the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  in  calling  upon 
the  Sultan  to  give  up  the  Hungarian  refugees. 
The  Sultan,  backed  by  England  and  France, 
had  declined.  The  chief  of  these  patriots, 
Kossuth,  had  become  a  popular  hero  in  England, 
especially  with  Radicals,  from  whom  resistance  to 


needless   war   might  have   been  most  confidently  1353. 
expected. 

For  the  present  the  question  was  within  the 
control  of  the  Cabinet.  The  English  people  had 
not  yet  got  out  of  hand.  Unfortunately,  how- 
ever, the  Cabinet  were  divided,  and  that  not,  as 


all  Cabinets  must  be,  on  matters  of  detail,  but  on 
matters  of  principle.  The  Prime  Minister  was 
extremely  pacific,  but  strong  forces  were  already 
working  against  him,  especially  Lord  Palmerston, 
Lord  Stratford  de  RedclifFe,  and  above  all,  the 
Emperor  of  the  French.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to 
represent  Lord  Aberdeen  as  a  weak  man.  He 
was  as  firm  and  courageous  as  he  was  high-minded 
and  just.  He  never  for  a  moment  faltered  in  his 
desire  to  preserve  peace,  or  in  his  belief  that  it 
might  be  honourably  preserved.  He  admitted 
indeed  that  Russia  could  not  be  suffered  to 
establish  herself  at  Constantinople,  but  he  scouted 
as  an  utter  delusion  the  idea  that  she  cherished 
that  design.  He  would  have  defied  Lord  Palmer- 
ston, Lord  Stratford,  and  the  Emperor  of  the 
French.  For  though  a  warm  friend  of  France, 
and  the  author  of  the  good  understanding  with 
Louis  Philippe,  he  thoroughly  disliked  and  dis- 
trusted Louis  Napoleon.  But  he  had  made  up 
his  mind,  first  that  Lord  John  Russell  was  indis- 
pensable to  the  Government,  and  secondly  that  to 
break  up  the  Government  would  precipitate  war. 
If  Lord  John  had  stood  by  his  chief,  instead  ofLordAber 
trying  to  supplant  him,  peace  might  have  been  Lord  John. 
maintained.  The  Cabinet  was  not  divided,  as  was 
commonly  supposed  at  the  time,  between  Whigs 
and  Peelites.  The  war  party  at  first  consisted 
of  Lord  Palmerston,  Lord  Lansdowne,  and  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle,  who  were  afterwards  joined 
by  Lord  John  Russell,  Lord  Clarendon,  and  Sir 
James  Graham.  Even  Mr.  Gladstone  went  with 


312   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  the  stream.  But  Lord  Granville  wrote  to  the 
Premier  in  the  summer  of  1853,  "  Remember  that 
the  silent  members  of  the  Cabinet  are  all  with 
you."  Sir  William  Molesworth  was  the  only 
Radical  who,  as  a  Cabinet  Minister,  had  a  voice  in 
deciding  the  policy  of  the  country,  and,  until  war 
actually  broke  out,  he  was  the  staunchest  of  the 
Aberdonians.  Two  other  Radicals  were  in  the 
Government,  but  not  in  the  Cabinet,  and  were 
therefore  bound  either  to  support  the  decisions  of 
the  inner  body  or  to  resign.  These  were  Mr. 
Charles  Villiers,  Judge  Advocate-General,  and  Mr. 
The  peace  Bemal  Osborne,  Secretary  of  the  Admiralty.  Mr. 
Cobden,  Mr.  Bright,  and  Mr.  Milner  Gibson  were 
and  remained  staunch  advocates  of  peace.  They 
had  against  them  the  whole  of  the  unofficial  Whigs 
except  Lord  Grey,  and  all  the  Tories  save  a  few 
eccentric  individuals,  such  as  Lord  Granby,  Lord 
Claud  Hamilton,  and  Mr.  John  Wilson  Croker,  of 
the  Quarterly  Review,  who  had  permanently  with- 
drawn from  Parliament  as  a  protest  against  the 
Reform  Act.  The  last  three  had  no  influence 
upon  public  affairs,  and  Lord  Grey,  with  all  his 
ability,  was  coming  to  be  regarded  as  a  "crank." 
Bright  and  Cobden  would  have  produced  more 
effect  if  they  had  argued  against  the  diplomacy  of 
the  Government,  instead  of  merely  deprecating 
bloodshed.  Bright  belonged  to  the  Society  of 
Friends,  whose  opposition  to  war  was  an  article 
of  their  religion.  Cobden  was  a  member  of  the 
Church  of  England.  But  capacious  as  his  mind 
was,  and  enlightened  as  were  his  general  views,  he 
let  it  be  supposed  that  in  his  opinion  the  one  object 
of  foreign  policy  was  the  advancement  of  trade. 
tord  Lord  Clarendon  does  not  seem  to  have  appre- 

piftronnge 9  ciated,  as   Lord  Stratford  certainly  did,  the    full 
e  significance    of    the    responsibility    assumed    by 
England    in    advising    the    Porte   to    reject    the 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION          313 

ultimatum  of  Prince  Mentschikoff.  But  before  the  isss. 
end  of  May  he  wrote  two  despatches  of  moment- 
ous importance.  To  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour  he 
expressed  entire  approval  of  what  the  Turkish 
Government  had  nominally  and  ostensibly  done. 
To  Lord  Stratford,  who  had  really  done  it,  he 
wrote  that  it  was  "  indispensable  to  take  measures 
for  the  protection  of  the  Sultan,  and  to  aid  his 
Highness  in  repelling  any  attack  that  might  be 
made  upon  his  territory."1  No  treaty  put  Eng- 
land under  any  such  obligation.  No  statesman 
told  Parliament,  though  Parliament  was  sitting, 
why  it  behoved  this  country  to  take  the  side  of 
the  Sultan  against  the  Czar. 

At   this    point    of   the    controversy   the    Czar 
came  to  a  fatal  determination.      He  resolved  to 
enforce   the   compliance  of  Turkey  with  his  not 
unreasonable  demands  by  occupying  the  Danubian  The  occupa 
Principalities.     He  had  far  better  have  fallen  back  princ°fth 
upon    the    Treaty    of    Kainardji,    and    upon    the  ifussia! by 
notorious  oppression  of  the  Sultan's  Christian  sub- 
jects.    But  Nicholas  was  angry,   and   anger   is   a 
bad  counsellor.      Before  the  occupation  could  be 
carried  out,  though   after   it   had   been  arranged, 
Admiral  Dundas  was  ordered  to  sail  from  Malta  into  The  Medi- 
Besika  Bay  to  join  the  French  fleet  at  the  entrance  flee?taputn 
of  the  Dardanelles,  and  to  put  himself  under  the  Stratford's 
orders  of  Lord  Stratford.     No  foreign  ships  of  war dl 
could  pass  into  the  Sea  of  Marmora  and  the  Black 
Sea  in  time  of  peace,  though  when  Turkey  was 
at  war  they  might  enter  with  the  leave   of  the 
Sultan.     The  movement  of  the  fleets  was  made  at 
the  instigation  of  the  French  Emperor,  and  con- 
trary to   the  judgment   of  Lord   Aberdeen,   who 
regarded  it  as  a  "  poor  demonstration,  which  only 
insults  him  [the  Czar],  and  does  nothing  effectual 
either    for    us   or    for    the    Power   we    desire   to 

1  Clarendon  to  Stratford,  26th  May  1853. 


314    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  protect." l  He  yielded,  however,  to  his  more 
bellicose  colleagues,  who  did  not  see  that  they 
were  being  pulled  by  Parisian  strings.  One  of 
them,  indeed,  required  no  pulling.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  used  to  vent  his  sarcasm,  which  was  not  of  a 
very  high  order,  upon  "  peace-at-any-price  men." 
War  at  any  price  was  his  object  in  1853.  He  did 
not,  as  has  been  seen,  neglect  the  business  of  the 
Home  Office ;  but  never  were  the  interests  of  a 
Home  Secretary  less  exclusively  at  home.  He 
palmer-  captured  Lord  John  Russell.  He  stimulated  Lord 
activity.  Clarendon.  He  was  hand  in  glove  with  Count 
Walewski,  the  French  Ambassador.  He  was 
actively  engaged  in  the  cause  of  Turkey  while 
Lord  Stratford  protested  to  the  Porte  against  the 
oppression  of  the  Christians,  and  Lord  Clarendon 
wrote  that  Christians  in  Turkey  must  be  put  on  a 
level  with  Mohammedans.  Lord  Clarendon  might 
as  well  have  proposed  the  abrogation  of  the  Koran. 
On  the  2nd  of  July  the  Russians  crossed  the  river 
Pruth,  and  occupied  the  Danubian  Principalities. 
This,  though  an  arbitrary  act,  was  not  an  act  of 
war.  The  Emperor  Nicholas  had  told  the  Sultan, 
at  least  Count  Nesselrode  had  told  Reschid  Pacha, 
that  failing  compliance  with  Prince  Mentschikoff's 
Ultimatum,  Moldavia  and  Wallachia  would  be 
occupied  as  B.  material  guarantee.  Though  under 
guarantee."  the  Sultan's  suzcrauity,  the  Principalities  were 
subject  to  a  joint  protectorate,  and  could  not  be 
regarded  as  an  integral  portion  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire.  On  the  other  hand,  the  occupation  gave 
Turkey  a  case  for  war,  if  she  chose  to  avail 
herself  of  it.  Count  Nesselrode,  in  a  diplomatic 
circular,  alleged  that  the  Pruth  had  been  crossed 
as  a  practical  reply  to  the  demonstrations  of  the 
English  and  French  fleets  in  Besika  Bay.  But 
this  allegation  does  not  square  with  the  dates. 

1  Lord  Stanmore's  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  p.  223. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION          315 

For  the  threat  of  occupation  was  issued  on  the 
31st  of  May,  and  the  order  to  Admiral  Dundas 
was  not  sent  till  the  2nd  of  June.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  at  this  time  urged  that  the  fleets  of  the 
Western  Powers  should  pass  the  Dardanelles 
and  anchor  in  the  Bosphorus  to  protect  Constanti- 
nople. To  this  Lord  Aberdeen  demurred,  and 
Palmerston  gave  way.  The  Cabinet  were  unani-  Turkey 
mous  in  holding  that  Turkey  should  be  advised  u>  declare0 
not  to  declare  war  against  Russia,  and  that  the Wi 
dispute  should  be  settled  by  the  four  neutral 
Powers  in  conjunction.  Here  we  may  pause  to 
observe  that  at  least  one  of  Lord  Aberdeen's 
colleagues,  Mr.  Gladstone,  always  repudiated  the 
"integrity  and  independence  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire"  as  a  motive  or  justification  for  war.  He 
held  that  Russia  was  defying  Europe,  and  that 
it  was  the  duty  of  Europe  to  uphold  public  law 
against  aggressive  violence.  But  Mr.  Gladstone's 
theory  implies  either  the  unanimity  of  the  Powers, 
or  at  least  a  predominant  majority,  and  neither 
Austria  nor  Prussia  would  go  the  length  of  using 
physical  force.  Instead  of  further  naval  demonstra- 
tions, which  would  have  been  contrary  to  treaty, 
the  Cabinet  drew  up  a  form  of  Convention  to  be 
signed  by  Russia  and  Turkey  for  the  settlement 
of  their  differences.  The  French  Government  at 
first  accepted  it.  But  the  Emperor  did  not  want 
peace,  and  especially  disliked  a  peace  proceeding 
from  England.  He  drew  up  a  paper  which  he  pro-  The  Vienna 
posed  that  the  Porte  should  address  to  Russia,  and  Nl 
upon  this  draft  the  representatives  of  the  four 
Powers  at  the  Austrian  capital  framed  the  Vienna 
Note.  The  purport  of  the  Note  was  to  confirm  the 
members  of  the  Greek  Church  who  were  subjects 
of  the  Sultan  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  ancient 
rights  and  privileges,  and  the  Czar,  with  suspicious  its  accept- 

T |          • ,  .     j    - ,  ance  bj  the 

alacrity,  at  once  accepted  it.  czar. 


316    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.       All  reasonable  causes  of  conflict  seemed  now  to 
have  been  removed,  and  the  collective  will  of  Europe 
Lord         to  have  prevailed.    Lord  Aberdeen  hoped  that  peace 
wiumgness  had   been   secured,   that   Russia   would   forthwith 
favour  of     evacuate  the  Principalities,  and  that  he  might  then 
retire  in  favour  of  Lord  John  Russell,  as  Lord  John 
was  impatient  for  him   to  do.     Lord  Aberdeen's 
principal    colleagues,  however,  Whig   as   well    as 
Peelite,  refused  to  contemplate  the   change,  and 
even  if  they  had  been  favourable  to  it,  the  develop- 
ment of  affairs  in  the  East  would  have  made  it 
impossible.    For  "the  Sultan"  rejected  the  Vienna 
Note,  because  it  implied  that  his  subjects  could 
have  rights  independent  of  their  sovereign.  Unless 
they  had,  they  would  possess  no  rights  at  all.     The 
moment  was  extremely  critical,  and  Lord  Aberdeen 
was  not  the  man  to  give  up  a  position   of  trust 
when   it  became   also   a  position   of  peril.      The 
four  Powers  endeavoured  to  overcome  the  resist- 
Rejection  of  ance  of  Turkey.     But  they  were  not  sufficiently 

the  Vienna 

Note.  explicit.1  Instead  of  peremptorily  calling  upon 
her  to  follow  the  example  of  the  Czar,  and  accept 
their  own  Note,  on  pain  of  being  left  to  her  own 
resources,  they  said  that  they  were  ready  to  make 
another  attempt  at  Petersburg.  For  as  the  Turkish 
modifications  appeared  to  them  unobjectionable 
though  unnecessary,  the  Emperor  of  Russia  might, 

ADS.  16.  they  thought,  be  willing  to  admit  them.  Mean- 
while Mr.  Layard,  a  fanatical  partisan  of  Turkey, 
raised  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the 
policy  of  the  Government,  which  ought  to  have 
been  raised  long  before  by  the  friends  of  peace. 
He  was  supported  by  Lord  Dudley  Stuart,  one 

1  Lord  Stratford  was  instructed  to  press  the  Vienna  Note  upon  the 
acceptance  of  the  Porte,  and  doubtless  he  went  through  that  form.  He 
"  recommended  it  officially,"  as  his  biographer  says  (Lane-Poole's  Life 
of  Stratford  Canning,  vol.  ii.  p.  291).  But  the  Turkish  Ministers  knew, 
no  one  better,  the  difference  between  an  official  and  a  personal  re- 
commendation from  the  Ambassador. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION         317 

of  Palmerston's  Radical  admirers,  and  opposed  by  1353. 
Mr.  Monckton  Milnes,  afterwards  Lord  Houghton, 
"freedom's  staunch  and  genial  friend."     But  the 
most  interesting  part   of  the  discussion  was   the 
duel  between  Mr.  Cobden  and  Lord  Palmerston.  Paimerston 
There  was  nothing  very  remarkable  in  what  Cobden  ai 
said  upon  that  occasion.     He  pointed  out,  as  any 
sensible  man  might  have  done,  that  the  Turks  were 
intruders  in  Europe,  that  their  home  was  in  Asia, 
and  that  the  sympathies  of  Englishmen  should  be 
not  with  the  Sultan,  but  with  his  Christian  subjects. 
The  really  extraordinary  speech  was  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's reply.     In  spite  of  Lord  Stratford's  damning 
reports,  which  he  must  have  seen,  he  maintained 
that  the  state  of  Turkey  was  one  of  progressive 
improvement,  and  he  edified  the  men  of  business  in 
the  House  by  a  lecture  on  the  value  of  Turkish 
trade.     The  audacity  of  his  assertions  must  have 
appalled    his    colleagues.       Time   has   abundantly 
vindicated  the  plain  sense  of  the  simple  manufacturer 
against  the  gasconade  of  the  veteran  diplomatist. 
But  the  Opposition  were  beginning  to  cry  out  for  The 
war,   and  Lord  Malmesbury  had   extracted   from  Sk"0" 
Lord  Clarendon  in  the  House  of  Lords  a  declaration 
that  the  Government  would  insist  upon  the  retire- 
ment of  Russia  from  the  Principalities,  though  if 
any  other  country  than  Turkey  were  interested  in 
Moldavia  and  Wallachia,  it  was  Austria,  and  notEng- 
land.   When  Parliament  was  prorogued,  the  Queen's  Aug.  20. 
Speech  expressed  a  hope  that  a  peaceful  settlement 
of    the    differences   between    Russia   and   Turkey 
might  be  secured.     But  that  hope  was  dwindling. 
Early  in  the  month  of  September  the  Czar,  as  might  The  czars 
have  been  expected,  refused  to  accept  the  Turkish  theUTurkish 
modifications  in  the  Vienna  Note.     He  had,  with 
rather  surprising  meekness,  allowed  the  four  Powers 
to  arbitrate  between  him  and  "the  Sultan."    Further 
he  refused  to  go.     When  Turkey  raised  difficulties, 


318   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  he  left  England,  France,  Austria  and  Prussia  to 
remove  them.  Count  Nesselrode's  refusal,  addressed 
to  Baron  Meyendorf,  the  Russian  Ambassador  at 
Vienna,  was  moderate  and  courteous  in  its  terms. 
He  pointed  out  that  the  Note  represented  the  col- 
lective opinion  of  the  four  Powers,  that  the  Emperor 
had  acquiesced  in  their  view,  and  that  Turkey  was 
proposal  to  now  arrayed  against  Europe.  Even  Lord  Palmer- 
porte.  ston  agreed  with  Lord  Aberdeen  in  thinking  that 
the  Porte  must  be  required  to  accept  the  Vienna 
Note.  But  at  this  point  Lord  John  Russell  inter- 
posed. Although  he  had  been  foremost  in  urging 
that  the  Porte  should  be  compelled  to  accept  the 
Note,  he  now  wrote  to  Lord  Aberdeen  that  to  press 
it  upon  the  Porte  unmodified  was  shameful,  and 
even  added  a  hope  that  the  Porte  would  reject  it. 
Threatened  If  it  were  forced  upon  her,  he  would  retire  from  the 
of  Lord  Government.  This  from  the  man  who  a  few  weeks 
before  had  agreed  that  the  modifications  should 
be  left  for  the  Czar  to  take  or  to  leave  because 
they  were  absolutely  unimportant.  Henceforth 
Lord  John  acted  with  the  war  party  in  the  Cabinet, 
and  unhappily  Count  Nesselrode  played  into  their 
hands  by  sending  a  confidential  Memorandum  to  the 
Russian  Minister  at  Berlin,  in  which  he  compared 
the  modifications  with  the  original  draft  in  order 
to  show  that  the  draft  did  confer  upon  Russia  the 
The  Russian  Protectorate  over  Greek  Christians  of  which  "the 
tSnhe  Sultan "  complained.  This  Memorandum  was  by 
some  accident  published,  and  injured  the  prospects 
of  peace.  Yet  such  an  interpretation  would  have 
been  placed  by  Russia  upon  any  similar  under- 
taking given  by  the  Porte,  inasmuch  as  it  only 
represented  the  meaning  attached  by  all  Russian 
statesmen  to  the  Treaty  of  Kainardji. 

"  The  Sultan  "  was  now  bent  on  declaring  war. 
But  Lord  Aberdeen  made  another  effort  to  preserve 
peace.  A  fresh  Note  was  presented  to  "  the  Sultan," 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION         319 

free  from  the  disputed  passages,  and  "  the  Sultan  " 
was  even  allowed  to  draw  it  up  himself.  Lord  An«w  Note- 
Clarendon,  in  an  able  despatch  to  Sir  Hamilton 
Seymour,  defended  the  modifications  suggested  by 
"  the  Sultan  "  in  the  other  Note,  because,  he  said, 
that  Monarch  could  not  be  asked  to  bestow  upon 
his  own  subjects  what  he  had  granted  in  the  case  of 
foreigners.  Lord  Clarendon  ignored  both  the  fact 
that  the  privilege  of  immunity  from  Turkish  justice 
had  been  extorted  from  the  Sultan  on  behalf  of 
many  Turkish  subjects,  and  also  the  certainty  that 
no  Turkish  promise  without  a  guarantee  was  worth 
a  straw.  With  the  new  Note  Lord  Aberdeen  most  Lord 
wisely  proposed  to  send  a  statement  that  if  it  were  proposed* 
not  adopted,  the  four  Powers  would  not  "  permit  Turkey* 
themselves,  in  consequence  of  unfounded  objections, 
or  by  the  declaration  of  war,  which  they  have  already 
condemned,  to  be  drawn  into  a  policy  inconsistent 
with  the  peace  of  Europe,  as  well  as  with  the  true 
interests  of  Turkey  itself."1  Had  these  words  been 
added,  there  would  in  all  probability  have  been  no 
war.  But  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  John,  both  now  Rejected  by 
intensely  warlike,  resisted  them  with  such  energy 
that  Lord  Aberdeen  dropped  them.  He  tried, 
however,  once  more.  Knowing  that  "  the  Sultan  " 
meant  to  declare  war,  he  proposed  that  the  Turks 
should  be  required  to  abstain  from  active  hostilities 
during  the  progress  of  negotiations.  Lord  John 
added  the  words  "for  a  reasonable  time,"  and 
"  the  Sultan  "  construed  them  to  mean  a  fortnight. 
The  consequence  was  that  before  the  Note  had 
been  accepted,  "  the  Sultan  "  declared  war,  and  that 
diplomatic  document  became  a  piece  of  waste  paper, 
as  "  the  Sultan,"  though  he  drew  it  up,  had  all  along  Russia. 
intended  that  it  should.  On  the  18th  of  October 
a  Divan  consisting  of  a  hundred  and  seventy- 
two  persons  assembled  for  the  formal  purpose  of 

1  Lord  Stanmore's  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  p.  232. 


1853.  declaring  war  against  Russia.  The  Russian  General 
was  summoned  to  withdraw  from  the  Principalities 
before  the  expiration  of  fifteen  days.  He  did  not 
comply  with  the  demand,  and  the  two  hereditary 
enemies  were  again  at  war. 

Lord  Aberdeen  had  done  his  best,  short  of  up- 
setting the  Government,  to  prevent  war  from 
breaking  out  He  now  did  his  best  to  prevent  it 
from  spreading.  But  as  he  had  formerly  yielded, 
for  the  sake  of  unity,  to  the  remonstrances  of  Lord 
Palmerston  and  Lord  John,  so  he  now  allowed  him- 
self to  be  what  is  vulgarly  called  "  bluffed  "  by  the 
Emperor  of  the  French.  That  crafty  Potentate, 
watching  English  opinion,  and  perceiving  that  it 
grew  more  warlike,  thought  that  he  could  safely 
drag  the  British  Cabinet  one  step  nearer  the  goal 
The  French  of  his  desires.  Under  pretence  that  there  might  be 
fleet*  s!?nts  a  rising  of  theological  students  in  Constantinople, 
i»eD»  he  asked,  or  rather  he  insisted,  that  the  French  and 
English  fleets  should  pass  the  Dardanelles.  This 
was  a  step  strictly  forbidden  by  the  Treaty  of  1841. 
But  the  British  Ministers  yielded  to  their  French 
Master,  and  after  some  delay  the  fleets  entered  the 
Dardanelles  on  the  22nd  of  October,  being  just 
twenty-four  hours  sooner  than  Abdul  Medjid  could 
lawfully  have  given  them  leave.  The  protection  of 
Constantinople,  which  is  neither  an  English  nor  a 
French  town,  was  the  ostensible  object  of  this 
manoeuvre.  It  was  of  course  intended  by  Louis 
Napoleon,  and  understood  by  Nicholas,  as  a  menacing 
demonstration  against  Russia.  Kinglake,  with 
unusual  simplicity,  contrasts  the  cautious  Pro- 
clamation of  "  the  Sultan "  and  the  more  fervid 
appeal  to  religious  sentiment  put  forward  by  the 
Czar.  Even  if  we  assume  that  Abdul  Medjid,  and 
not  "  the  great  Eltchi "  who  governed  in  his  name, 
was  for  these  purposes  the  Sultan,  it  may  still  be 
observed  that  a  Sovereign  who  depended  upon  the 


support  of  at  least  two  Christian  Powers  would 
not  unnaturally  abstain  from  anathematising  the 
Christian  faith.  But  indeed  a  Turkish  Pasha,  be 
he  Sultan,  Grand  Vizier,  Foreign  Minister,  or  what 
not,  cared  a  great  deal  more  for  suppressing  other 
people's  religion  than  for  upholding  his  own.  The 
Prime  Minister,  who  kept  his  head  while  other 
people  were  rapidly  losing  theirs,  wrote  to  Lord 
Palmerston  on  the  6th  of  November,  in  language 
which  subsequent  events  have  ratified  and  enforced. 
"  Notwithstanding  the  favourable  opinion  enter-  Lord 
tained  by  many,"  he  said,  "  I  have  no  belief  what-  di 
ever  in  the  improvement  of  the  Turks.  It  is  true  ^ 
that  under  the  pressure  of  the  moment  benevolent 
decrees  may  be  issued,  but  which  [we],  except  under 
the  eye  of  some  Foreign  Minister,  are  entirely 
neglected.  Their  whole  system  is  radically  vicious 
and  abominable.  I  do  not  refer  to  fables  which 
may  be  invented  at  St.  Petersburg  or  Vienna,  but  to 
numerous  despatches  of  Lord  Stratford  himself,  and 
our  own  Consuls,  who  describe  a  frightful  picture  of 
lawless  oppression  and  cruelty.  This  is  so  true  that 
if  war  should  continue,  and  the  Turkish  armies  meet 
with  disaster,  we  may  expect  to  see  the  Christian 
population  of  the  Empire  rise  against  their  oppressors, 
and  in  such  a  case  it  could  hardly  be  proposed  to 
employ  the  British  force  in  the  Levant  to  assist  in 
compelling  their  return  under  a  Mahommedan 
yoke."  Lord  Aberdeen  saw  further  than  most  of 
his  contemporaries,  and  he  did  not  commit  the 
error  of  supposing  that  Turkey  could  be  reformed. 
But  he  undoubtedly  misunderstood  the  trend  of 
public  opinion  in  the  autumn  of  1853,  which  Lord 
Palmerston  perfectly  appreciated.  The  Turkish 
armies  did  not  "  meet  with  disaster,"  and  the  disaster 
which  befell  the  Turkish  Navy  had  a  very  different 
effect  from  that  which  Lord  Aberdeen  anticipated. 
Early  in  November  the  Turks  crossed  the  Danube 

VOL.  I  Y 


322    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  under  Omar  Pasha,  and  gained  several  successes 
over  the  Russian  troops.  But  while  Russians  and 
Turks  were  righting,  while  the  four  Powers  were 

ihowar  negotiating,  the  disease  known  as  war  fever  was 
taking  possession  of  England.  Whatever  else  may 
be  said  of  it,  it  was  a  wholly  disinterested  passion. 
Englishmen  had  nothing  to  gain  by  war,  and  nothing 
to  lose  by  peace.  It  was  for  no  selfish  object,  but 
from  a  genuine  feeling  of  moral  indignation  against 
Russian  policy  as  described  by  most  of  the  English 
newspapers,  though  not  at  first  by  the  most  power- 
ful of  them  all,  that  the  British  public  clamoured 
for  strong  measures.  Yet  clamour  they  did.  As 
Lord  Stanmore  says,1  "  Whigs  and  Tories  and 
Radicals,  men  and  women,  young  and  old,  orators 
on  the  platform  and  preachers  in  the  pulpit, 
vied  with  one  another  in  denunciations  of  the 
ambition  of  Russia  and  of  the  supineness  of 
the  Government  hi  resisting  its  encroachments." 

Attacks      Rightly  divining  that  Lord  Aberdeen  was  heart 

on  Lord  ^         *  ^ 

Aberdeen;  and  soul  in  favour  of  peace,  they  attacked  him  with 
an  unmeasured  severity,  which  grew  in  bitterness 
from  day  to  day.  With  him  was  strangely  mingled 
an  illustrious  personage,  who  could  not,  like  Lord 
Aberdeen,  defend  himself.  The  peculiar  position 
Md  on  of  Prince  Albert,  though  it  enabled  him  to  do  much 
Albert.  good,  rendered  him  also  liable  to  much  misunder- 
standing. The  secrets  of  the  Cabinet  are  supposed  to 
be  kept  from  every  one  except  the  Sovereign.  But 
even  Cabinet  Ministers  have  wives,  and  the  wife  is 
not  always  the  weaker  vessel.  Marriage  is  older 
than  the  Constitution,  and  beyond  its  reach.  The 
Prince  would  have  been  more  prudent  if  he  had 
remained  more  in  the  background,  and  if  he  had 
been  content  to  play  the  part,  repudiated  by  William 
the  Third,  of  his  wife's  gentleman  usher,  he  would 
at  least  have  escaped  calumny.  But  he  was  a  man, 

1  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  p.  255. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION          323 

and  a  statesman,  and  to  be  a  Prince  George  of  1353. 
Denmark  was  for  him  impossible.  He  was  in  truth 
extremely  conscientious,  and  if  ever  he  made 
mistakes,  it  was  a  sense  of  duty  which  dictated 
them.  But  to  the  ignorant  and  gullible  part  of  the 
nation,  made  more  suspicious  by  newspapers  on 
both  sides  of  politics,  he  was  simply  a  meddlesome 
German,  careless  of  British  interests,  and  yet 
directing  British  politics  for  his  own  purposes  behind 
the  scenes.  The  readers  of  the  Daily  News,  of  the 
Morning  Advertiser,  of  the  Standard,  and  of  the 
Morning  Herald  were  instructed  to  believe  that 
Prince  Albert  was  a  "  Russian,"  as  every  opponent 
of  war  was  called,  and  that  he  had  entered  into  a 
conspiracy  with  the  Prime  Minister  to  further  the 
designs  of  the  Emperor  Nicholas.  If  His  Royal 
Highness  had  done  as  much  for  peace  as  Lord 
Aberdeen  did,  it  would  have  been  highly  creditable 
to  his  benevolence  and  wisdom.  But  as  a  matter 
of  fact  he  steered  a  middle  course  between  Lord 
Aberdeen  and  Lord  Palmerston,  coinciding  as 
nearly  as  possible  in  opinion  with  Lord  Clarendon. 
That  he  was  German  in  his  sympathies  is  of  course  True  post- 
true.  It  would  have  been  unnatural  if  he  had  not  prfnc°e. 
been.  Where  the  interests  of  his  adopted  country 
were  not  even  alleged  to  be  concerned,  as  in  the 
case  of  Schleswig-Holstein,  he  frankly  sided  with 
the  German  Powers,  and  the  Cabinet,  ignoring  his 
views,  as  frankly  sided  with  Denmark.  The  rumour 
of  his  Russian  proclivities  was  as  pure  an  invention 
as  the  rumour  that  he  had  been  committed  for  high 
treason.  On  the  contrary  he  exerted  all  his  influence, 
though  without  effect,  to  bring  Prussia  and  Austria, 
especially  Prussia,  into  line  with  the  Western 
Powers.  If  he  had  succeeded,  there  would  have 
been  no  war,  and  yet  Turkey,  not  Russia,  would 
have  won  the  game.  He  ought  perhaps  to  have 
foreseen  that  the  Central  Powers  had  objects  of  their 


324   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  own,  which  were  confined  to  the  evacuation  of  the 
Principalities  and  the  freedom  of  the  Danube. 
But  this  want  of  foresight  was  shared  by  Lord 
Clarendon,  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  by  Lord  John 
Russell,  and  probably  by  the  whole  Cabinet  except 
Lord  Aberdeen. 

Public  feeling  in  England,  already  more  than 
hot  enough,  was  further  inflamed  at  this  time  by 
The  battle  the  battle,  falsely  called  the  massacre,  of  Sinope.1 
On  the  30th  of  November  a  Turkish  squadron, 
anchored  at  Sinope,  a  Turkish  port  in  the  Black 
Sea,  was  attacked  and  destroyed  by  the  Russian 
Admiral  Nachimoff.  Four  thousand  Turks  are 
said  to  have  perished  on  this  occasion.  Full  in- 
telligence of  the  engagement  did  not  reach  England 
till  the  14th  of  December,  when  it  was  greeted 
with  a  storm  of  indignation  quite  unwarranted  by 
the  facts.  Russia  and  Turkey  were  at  war.  Turkey 
had  declared  war  against  Russia.  The  destruction 
of  an  enemy's  ships  is  a  legitimate  operation  of 
warfare,  and  is  not  less  legitimate  because  those 
ships  are  in  one  of  their  own  harbours.  The  battle 
of  Sinope  was  at  least  as  regular  a  proceeding  as 
the  battle  of  Navarino,  which,  though  described 
by  the  Duke  as  an  "  untoward  event,"  was  hailed 
with  enthusiastic  acclamation  by  Canningites  and 
Whigs.  Nevertheless  the  achievement  of  Admiral 
Nachimoff  was  denounced  as  an  outrage  upon  our 
"ally,"  and  there  was  a  loud  cry  for  vengeance. 
This  is  a  misuse  of  the  term  "ally,"  more  common 
then  than  now.  There  can  be  no  allies  without  an 
alliance ;  and  no  alliance  between  Great  Britain 
and  Turkey  existed  in  1853.  In  declaring  war 
against  Russia,  Turkey  had  repudiated  British 
advice,  given  her  for  her  own  good,  and  had  not 
therefore  the  claim  to  British  protection  which 
compliance  with  that  advice  would  have  given  her. 

1  It  was  this  event  which  first  made  the  Times  an  advocate  of  war. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION         325 

But  Lord  Stratford  knew  what  he  was  talking 
about  when  on  hearing  of  Sinope  he  exclaimed, 
"Thank  God!  that's  war."1  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  the  British  Ambassador  spoke  in  a 
spirit  of  bloodthirstiness.  It  was  his  firm  and 
deliberate  policy,  to  which  he  adhered  in  spite  of 
all  instructions  from  home,  that  Turkey  should 
"settle  accounts  with  Russia  once  for  all."  By 
diplomatic  usage  an  Ambassador  should  have  no 
policy,  and  if  he  disobeys  instructions,  he  should 
be  recalled.  But  Lord  Stratford  was  no  ordinary 
Ambassador,  and  he  had  to  deal  with  no  ordinary 
Government.  His  ascendency  over  the  wretched 
creature  who  cowered  in  the  Yildiz  Kiosque,  and 
over  the  creatures  of  that  creature,  was  not  diplo- 
matic at  all.  It  was  like  that  of  a  huntsman  over 
his  dogs.  When  he  cracked  his  whip,  they  came 
to  heel.  On  the  other  hand,  the  state  of  his 
nominal  masters  in  the  Cabinet  was  utterly  deplor-  Lord  strat- 
able.  There  were  thirteen  of  them,  and  they  were  cabinet 
at  sixes  and  sevens.  Lord  Aberdeen  could  at  any 
time  have  got  a  majority  if  he  had  taken  a  vote, 
as,  for  instance,  upon  Lord  Stratford's  recall.  But 
disruption  would  have  been  the  result,  for  Lord 
John  Russell,  Lord  Palmerston,  and  possibly 
some  others,  would  have  resigned.  Lord  Claren- 
don's despatches,  always  admirably  written,  were 
in  substance  a  compromise,  and  Lord  Stratford 
justly,  or  at  least  correctly,  concluded  that  in  the 
circumstances  he  could  do  as  he  pleased.  His 
pleasure,  in  the  sense  of  his  inclination,  was  war. 

At  this   point  the   evil  genius   of  the   drama 
again  appeared  upon  the  scene.     The  Emperor  afxfeiafi* 
the  French  called  upon  the  British  Government,  Napoleon. 
not  merely  to  send  their  fleet  into  the  Black  Sea 
together  with  his  own,  but  further  to  join  him  in 

1  Lord  Stanmore's  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  p.  254 ;  Lord  Malmesbury's 
Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  425  ;  "  Greville  Memoirs,    20th  February  1854. 


326   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1853.  confining  all  Russian  ships  of  war  within  the 
harbour  of  Sebastopol.  The  Cabinet,  not  yet 
despairing  of  peace,  hesitated  to  take  the  latter 
step.  They  were  waiting  for  the  effect  of  a  Protocol 
upon  which  the  four  Powers  had  agreed,  and  which, 
if  Russia  had  accepted  it,  as  Turkey  did,  would 
have  restored  peace  to  Europe.  Count  Nesselrode 
had  told  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour,  after  Sinope,  that 
the  Russian  fleet  had  no  intention  of  leaving  Sebas- 
topol again  during  the  winter,  and  that  the  Czar 
would  consent  to  the  neutralisation  of  the  Black 
Sea  during  the  war.  But  of  course,  he  added,  if 
Russian  ships  were  restrained  from  taking  the 
offensive,  a  similar  prohibition  must  be  applied  to 
Turkey.  Just  as  the  hopes  of  peace  were  reviving, 
Lord  Palmerston,  the  strongest  supporter  of  war 
»ec.  IB,  in  the  Cabinet,  suddenly  resigned.  His  resignation, 

resignation  -  *'  ...  °    . 

pfaiLmereton  n  altogether  voluntary,  had  ostensibly  nothing  to 
do  with  foreign  affairs.1  He  strongly  objected  to 
the  Reform  Bill  which  Lord  John  Russell  was 
preparing  for  the  Session  of  1854.  Lord  Aberdeen 
as  strongly  supported  Lord  John,  and  virtually 
told  Palmerston  that  if  he  would  not  accept  the 
Bill,  he  could  not  continue  in  office.  Meanwhile 
the  French  Emperor  continued  to  press  for  the 
confinement  of  the  Russian  fleet  to  Sebastopol, 
knowing,  as  he  must  have  known,  that  it  would 
destroy  all  chance  of  the  Vienna  Protocol  being 
ud  Iffi?  accePte(l  by  tne  Czar.  The  Cabinet  yielded, 
the  Bieackr  though  Lord  Aberdeen  stipulated  that  all  hostili- 
ties in  the  Black  Sea,  Turk  or  Russian,  should  be 
forbidden.  Louis  Napoleon  had  attained  his  object. 
War  was  inevitable  now.  Immediately  after  this 

1  It  is,  however,  to  be  observed  that  Prince  Albert  had  on  the  21st 
of  October  drawn  up  a  Memorandum  in  favour  of  exacting  guarantees 
from  the  Sultan  for  the  benefit  of  his  Christian  subjects,  with  which 
Lord  Aberdeen  and  Lord  John  fully  concurred,  while  Lord  Palmerston 
expressed  his  emphatic  dissent.  The  feud  between  Palmerston  and  the 
Court  was  by  no  means  healed. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION         327 

fatal  decision  Lord  Palmerston  was  induced  by  is53 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle  and  Mr.  Gladstone  to  £"£\ 
withdraw  his  resignation,  and  Lord  Aberdeen  «<« 
reluctantly  accepted  the  withdrawal.  The  motive 
of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  the  Duke  appears  to  have 
been  distrust  of  Lord  John  Russell,  and  dread  of 
his  ascendency  in  the  Cabinet.  For  Lord  John's 
behaviour  at  this  period  of  his  life  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  parallel  among  public  men.  He 
was  alternately  hinting  that  he  ought  to  be  Prime 
Minister,  and  threatening  to  resign.  He  claimed 
a  voice  in  the  disposal  of  patronage,  to  which  he 
had  no  right,  and  a  general  superintendence  over 
the  business  of  all  Departments  which  was  simply 
grotesque.  He  denounced  the  misgovernment  of 
Turkey  in  the  strongest  language,  and  he  was 
eager  to  fight  for  Turkey  against  Russia.  He 
refused  the  Home  Office  when  Lord  Palmerston 
vacated  it,  complained  of  his  "  intolerable  position," 
and  made  Lord  Aberdeen's  position  a  burden  to 
him.  Lord  Aberdeen  did  not  resent  this  treat- 
ment. He  was  above  it.  His  colleagues,  however, 
resented  it  for  him,  and  they  would  not  do  any- 
thing which  might  help  to  put  Lord  John  at  their 
head.  Lord  Palmerston's  return  to  the  Cabinet 
made  very  little  difference,  one  way  or  the  other. 
All  hope  of  peace  was  gone.  Lord  Clarendon  had 
expressed  his  "horror"  at  the  battle  of  Sinope. 
There  were  much  greater  horrors  to  come.  On  the 
last  day  of  the  year  the  Vienna  Protocol  was 
accepted  by  the  Sultan.  But  there  was  no  longer 
any  chance  that  it  would  be  accepted  by  the  Czar. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

THE   FIRST    PART    OF   THE    RUSSIAN    WAR 

1854.  ON  the  4th  of  January  1854  the  English  and 
Drifting  French  fleets  entered  the  Black  Sea.  The  Czar, 
S^*1  of  course,  asked  for  explanations,  but  it  is  likely 
that  he  wanted  to  gain  time.  That  an  embargo 
should  be  put  upon  his  own  ships  without  his 
own  consent  was  an  affront  to  which  an  Autocrat 
of  thirty  years'  standing  could  not  be  expected 
to  submit.  To  the  English  Deputation  from 
FiBb.io.  the  Society  of  Friends,1  which  visited  him  at 
Petersburg,  he  was  affable  and  polite.  That  he 
and  Count  Nesselrode  believed  these  gentlemen, 
or  the  Peace  Party  in  general,  to  have  any  real 
influence  upon  public  opinion  in  England  is  in- 
credible. It  was  Count  Nesselrode's  business  to 
-ascertain  the  truth,  and  nobody  knew  his  business 
better  than  Count  Nesselrode.  They  may  have 
had  some  confidence  in  the  pacific  intentions  of 
Lord  Aberdeen,  who  continued  to  assert,  and  to 
believe,  that  there  would  be  no  war.  Yet  even 
Lord  Aberdeen  was  now  forced  to  say  of  his 
colleagues,  "  I  labour  for  peace  ;  but  when  I  speak 
unto  them  thereof,  they  make  them  ready  to 

1  The  members  of  the  Deputation  were  Mr.  Sturge  from  Birmingham, 
Mr.  Charlton  from  Bristol,  and  Mr.  Pease  from  Darlington.  The 
Czar  delighted  them  with  his  homeliness.  "By  the  way,"  said  he, 
"do  you  know  my  wife?"  At  the  time  of  this  visit  the  Russian 
Ambassador  had  actually  left  England. 

328 


battle."  l  The  day  after  the  entry  of  the  fleets,  1354. 
the  5th  of  January,  Charles  Greville  inserted  this 
curious  passage  in  his  Diary :  "  Graham  told  me 
that  Stratford  was  now  really  anxious  for  peace, 
for  he  began  to  see  the  possibility  of  war  bringing 
about  the  substitution  of  French  influence  at  Con- 
stantinople in  place  of  Russian,  and  of  the  two  he 
infinitely  preferred  the  latter.  Clarendon  confirmed 
this."  The  only  permanent  influence  at  Constan- 
tinople is  Russian,  and  that  for  obvious  reasons. 
But  if  Lord  Stratford  really  wished  for  peace  in 
January  1854,  which  may  be  doubted,  he  was  too 
late.  The  French  Emperor  did  indeed  make  a  The  French 
theatrical  and  obviously  insincere  attempt  to  con-  SteM?" 
ciliate  the  man  who  would  not  call  him  brother. th 
He  wrote  a  letter  in  his  own  hand  to  his  "  good  Jan.  29. 
friend "  the  Czar,  whom,  by  the  way,  his  Am- 
bassador2 had  congratulated  upon  the  affair  of 
Sinope.  The  details  of  this  document  are  unim- 
portant. What  is  important  is  the  assurance  with 
which  the  man  of  December  used  the  name  of  the 
Queen.  "  France  as  well  as  England,"  he  wrote, 
"  will  be  compelled  to  leave  to  the  fate  of  arms 
and  the  chances  of  war  that  which  might  now  be 
settled  by  reason  and  justice."  This  letter  was 
communicated  to  the  British  Government  before 
it  was  sent,  but  the  alterations  suggested  by  Lord 
Clarendon  were  not  made.  The  explanation  why 
the  ships  were  sent  into  the  Black  Sea  made  it 
clear  that  they  were  entirely  directed  against 
Russia,  and  not  against  Turkey  at  all.  The  old 
Emperor  was  not  fond  of  the  new  one,  and  the 
letter  did  no  good.  Baron  Brunnow,  the  Russian 
Ambassador,  a  devoted  friend  of  England,  and  an 
admirer  of  Lord  Palmerston's,  was  in  despair.  But 

1  Lord  Stanmore's  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  p.  245. 

2  M.  Castelbajac,  an  ardent  friend  of  Russia,  and  a  courtier  of  the 
Czar. 


330   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  war  did  not  immediately  ensue.     Parliament  met 
popular      on  the  31st  of  January,  and  Greville  remarks  that 

enthusiasm  J  '  .  .        .  _  .    , 

for  war.  the  mob  received  the  lurkish  Ambassador  with 
far  more  enthusiasm  than  the  Queen.  The  debate 
in  the  House  of  Lords  disclosed  the  policy  of  the 
Opposition.  It  was  to  be  more  warlike  than  the 
Government,  and  to  exalt  Lord  Palmerston  at  the 
expense  of  Lord  Aberdeen.  The  aggression  of 
Russia,  and  the  vacillation  of  the  Cabinet,  were 
Lord  Derby's  principal  topics.  It  was  a  perfectly 
fair  line  to  take,  and  it  was  undoubtedly  popular.1 
Lord  Grey  alone,  with  a  sanity  which  should  not 
have  been  conspicuous,  argued  in  his  dry,  lucid 
way  that  it  was  no  business  of  ours  to  interfere 
Refutation  between  Russia  and  Turkey.  Lord  Aberdeen 
charges  conclusively  demonstrated  the  groundlessness  of 
the  charges  against  Prince  Albert,  and  very  pro- 
perly pointed  out  that  they  had  not  been  confined 
to  the  Radical  Press.  Lord  Palmerston  was  at 
the  time  suspected,  both  at  the  Court  and  else- 
where, of  being  concerned  in  these  scandalous  in- 
vectives. But  he  denied  it,  and  there  was  no 
evidence  to  prove  it.  The  paper  which  habitually 
drew  its  inspiration  from  him,  the  Morning  Post, 
took  no  part  in  the  attacks  upon  the  Prince.  In 
the  House  of  Commons,  Lord  John  Russell  was 
not  less  emphatic  than  Lord  Aberdeen,  Mr.  Walpole 
supported  him,  and  the  accusations  were  not  in 
public  renewed. 

Time  passed,  and  all  Europe  waited  in  tremulous 

suspense  for  what  every  one  felt  to  be  coming. 

But  still  the  Emperor  of  Russia  did  not  declare 

The  with-    war.      On  the  4th  of  February,  Baron  Brunnow 

the  Am-0     announced  to  Lord  Clarendon  that  he  should  have 

to  leave  London,  and  on  the  7th  Sir   Hamilton 

Seymour  was  directed  by  Lord  Clarendon  to  leave 

1  "  In  a  case  of  this  kind/'  said  Lord  Aberdeen,  "  I  dread  popular 
support." — Lord  Stanmore's  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  p,  256. 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     331 

Petersburg.  But  the  withdrawal  of  Ambassadors,  1354 
or  even  the  cessation  of  diplomatic  intercourse, 
does  not  always  lead  to  actual  hostilities.  The 
Czar  temporised  with  the  Vienna  Protocol,  putting 
forward  by  way  of  counter-proposal  that  negotia- 
tions should  be  conducted  directly  between  Peters- 
burg and  Constantinople.  But  Austria  declined 
to  accept  the  Russian  modifications,  and  proposed 
that  Russia  should  be  forthwith  summoned  to 
evacuate  the  Principalities.  This  strengthened 
the  war  party  in  the  Cabinet,  because  it  seemed 
clearly  to  follow  that  Austria  would  take  an  active 
part  against  Russia  by  means  more  forcible  than 
diplomacy. 

Under  these  desperate  conditions  Lord  John  An 
Russell,  on  the  13th  February,  introduced  his  il 
Reform  Bill.  This  Bill,  which  went  no  further, 
was  a  faint  and  feeble  reflection  of  the  great  measure 
introduced  by  its  author  in  1831.  It  would  have 
disfranchised  boroughs  where  the  population  was 
below  five  thousand,  and  would  have  reduced  the 
franchise  to  ten  pounds  in  the  counties,  to  six 
pounds  in  the  towns.  Such  were  the  revolutionary 
proposals  which  could  provoke  a  Cabinet  crisis  in 
1854.  One  or  two  minor  provisions  deserve  a 
passing  notice.  Some  public  bodies,  including  the 
Inns  of  Court,  those  nurseries  of  rational  progress, 
were  to  be  represented  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
thus  anticipating  the  "  fancy  franchises  "  afterwards 
destroyed  by  the  pungent  ridicule  of  John  Bright. 
Minorities  were  in  some  instances  to  be  protected 
by  the  experiment,  actually  tried  in  later  years,  of 
giving  only  two  votes  to  each  elector  in  constitu- 
encies which  returned  three  members,  and  Ministers 
were  not  to  vacate  their  seats  on  taking  office. 
This  last  provision  was  almost  enough  to  un-Whig 
Lord  John  for  life.  It  is  impossible  not  to  admire 
the  determination  of  the  veteran  reformer,  and  the 


332    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  loyalty  of  the  Prime  Minister  to  a  colleague  of 
whom  he  had  so  much  reason  to  complain.  But 
the  Bill  was  not  wanted.  It  pleased  nobody,  and 
its  chances  were  hopeless.  To  the  Radicals  it  was 
a  mockery,  to  the  Whigs  a  stumbling-block,  to  the 
Tories  an  opportunity. 

The  very  day  after  it  was  introduced,  Lord  Claren- 
don used  in  the  House  of  Lords  a  phrase  which  has 
become  historic,  though  with  an  important  varia- 
tion from  the  original  form.  "  We  are  drifting," 
said  the  Foreign  Secretary,  not  into  war,  but 
"towards  war."  "  Drifting  into  war  "  would  have 
been  a  confession  of  abject  helplessness.  "  Drift- 
ing towards  war  "  was  an  accurate  though  scarcely 
a  felicitous  account  of  events  passing  before  men's 
eyes.  Lord  Grey  uttered  once  more  a  warning 
The  defence  note.  "  We  are  arming,"  said  he,  "to  defend  a 
phantasm,  phantasm,  for  the  maintenance  of  the  oppressor's 
domination."  If  he  meant  to  impute  motives, 
Lord  Grey  went  too  far.  But  if  the  maxim  of  the 
criminal  law  be  right,  and  men  must  be  taken  to 
intend  the  natural  consequences  of  their  acts,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  dispute  the  soundness  of  this 
epigrammatic  analysis.  Lord  John  Russell  might 
well  have  laid  it  to  heart.  Those  who  go  about  to 
defend  such  phantasms  as  the  independence  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire  must  leave  the  solid  realities  of 
legislation  to  their  wiser  successors  in  happier  times, 
even  if  those  successors  should  be  themselves. 


Lord  Aberdeen  now  stood  almost  alone  among 
efforts  for  the  vocal  members  of  his  Cabinet  in  favour  of 
peace.  He  steadily  and  courageously,  in  public 
and  in  private,  declined  to  regard  war  as  inevit- 
able until  it  had  occurred.  It  is  easy,  in  look- 
ing back,  to  see  that  his  hopes  were  vain.  But 
if  there  be  any  truth  in  the  saying,  "  Blessed 
are  the  peacemakers,"  the  Minister  who,  having 
faithfully  served  his  country  for  half  a  century, 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     333 

now  laboured  day  and  night  to  rescue  her  from  the  1354. 
guilt  of  a  Turkish  alliance  and  the  horrors  of  a 
Russian  campaign,  deserves  from  the  late  justice 
of  posterity  a  tribute  of  something  warmer  than 
gratitude,  and  something  higher  than  respect.  At 
the  close  of  his  life  JLord  Aberdeen  was  wont  to 
cite  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Act  and  the  Crimean 
War  as  the  two  greatest  errors  committed  in  his 
time,  and  to  add  that  they  were  both  demanded 
by  public  opinion.  To  the  first  he  offered  in 
Opposition  a  strenuous,  though  an  unavailing 
resistance.  In  the  second  he  became,  as  head  of 
the  Government,  a  reluctant  participator.  But 
no  one  did  or  could  reproach  him  with  undue 
love  of  office.  He  was  anxious,  perhaps  too 
anxious,  to  be  relieved  from  its  burdens  and  re- 
sponsibilities. He  remained  for  the  sole  purpose, 
and  as  the  last  chance,  of  preserving  an  honourable 
peace. 

But  it  was  war  which  Lord  Palmerston  wanted, 
and  it  was  war  for  which  the  Opposition  were 
clamouring.  In  the  House  of  Commons  Mr. 
Disraeli,  who  had  been  bitterly  disappointed  by 
Palmerston's  return  to  Downing  Street,  accused  the 
Government  of  "  credulity  or  connivance."  Lord 
Palmerston  replied  to  him  in  the  consecrated  formula 
of  a  Minister  who  knows  that  his  best  argument 
will  be  found  in  the  division-lobby.  "  If  you  don't 
trust  us,"  he  said,  "  turn  us  out."  The  retort  was 
practically  conclusive.  For  to  turn  the  Govern- 
ment out  would  have  been  to  vote  in  favour  of 
peace,  and  to  vote  in  favour  of  peace  would  have 
been  unpopular.  Yet  at  this  juncture  Count  Buol,  Thepoiicv 
the  Austrian  Chancellor,  made  to  the  French ofAustlia 
Ambassador  at  Vienna  a  communication  which, 
had  it  been  sincere,  might  have  averted  war.  If, 
he  said,  England  and  France  would  fix  a  date  for 
the  evacuation  of  the  Danubian  Principalities  by 


334    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  Russia,  Austria  would  support  them.  He  did  not, 
however,  explain  that,  as  almost  immediately  ap- 
peared, it  was  only  diplomatic  support  he  meant. 
Meanwhile,  as  the  days  slipped  by,  the  chances  of 
The  weak-  peace  dwindled  into  nothingness.  "The  rage  for 
J5e?ce°fparty.  this  war,"  wrote  Greville  on  the  25th  of  February 
1854,  "  gets  every  day  more  vehement,  and  nobody 
seems  to  fear  anything,  but  that  we  may  not  spend 
money  and  men  enough  in  waging  it.  The  few 
sober  people  who  have  courage  enough  to  hint  at 
its  being  impolitic  and  uncalled  for  are  almost 
hooted  down,  and  their  warnings  and  scruples  are 
treated  with  indignation  and  contempt."  Mr. 
Cobden,  for  example,  pointed  out  the  remarkable 
fact  that  the  majority  of  the  Sultan's  subjects  were 
on  the  side  of  Russia,  but  the  only  response  he  got 
was  that  they  ought  to  know  better.  As  a  climax  of 
make-believe  "  the  Sultan  "  issued  a  firman  purport- 
ing to  overthrow  the  Koran,  upon  which  his  Crown, 
as  well  as  his  salvation,  rested,  and  to  put  the 
evidence  of  Christian  dogs  on  an  equality  with  the 
word  of  true  believers.  So  great  and  so  prolonged 
had  been  the  strain  that  it  was  almost  a  relief 
even  to  opponents  of  the  war  when  at  last,  on  the 
The  Tiiti-  27th  of  February,  Lord  Clarendon  took  the  decisive 
the  western  step.  Writing  directly  to  Count  Nesselrode,  as 
the  Ambassador  had  been  withdrawn,  and  relying 
upon  the  Austrian  promise  of  assistance,  he  de- 
manded the  evacuation  of  the  Principalities  by  the 
30th  of  April.  An  answer  was  required  within 
six  days.  A  precisely  similar  demand  was  made 
by  the  French  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  M. 
Drouyn  de  Lhuys.  The  Emperor  Nicholas  ordered 
that  to  these  despatches  no  reply  should  be  given, 
and  on  both  sides  immediate  preparations  were 
made  for  war.  The  formal 'declarations  were  issued 
by  France  on  the  27th,  and  by  England  on  the 
28th  of  March.  But  war  really  began  when  the 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     335 

Czar   declined    to    answer   the    despatches.      The  1354. 
effect  was  in  one  way  wholesome.     The  constant?!hedflara- 

turn  of  war. 

incitements  to  action  ceased,  and  there  fell  upon 
the  nation  for  the  moment  a  great  calm.  As  the 
hero  of  Maud  said  in  his  haste,  "  the  long,  long 
canker  of  peace  "  was  "  over  and  done." 

With  the  end  of  parley,  and  the  beginning  of  The  security 
strife,  the  position  of  the  Government  became  more  Govern- 
secure.     The  war  party  were  bound  to  give  them  m 
assistance  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war.     The  peace 
party,  even  if  they  had  been  numerically  strong 
enough  to  make  themselves  felt  in  elections  or  divi- 
sions, would  not  have  turned  Lord  Aberdeen  out  to 
put  Lord  Derby  in.     The  publication  of  the  Eastern 
Papers  dispelled  the  idea  of  subservience  to  Russia, 
and    Lord     Clarendon's    despatches    were    much 
admired.     The  first  detachment  of  British  troops  sailing  of 
sailed  on  the  28th  of  February  for  Malta  on  their  detach- 
way  to   Gallipoli  in  the  Dardanelles,  where  they m 
arrived,  after  a  month  in  Malta,  at  the  beginning  of 
April.     To  command  the  whole  British  force  the 
Government   chose  General  Lord  Raglan.     Lord  Lord 
Raglan,  under  his  former   name  of  Lord  Fitzroy  E 
Somerset,  had  served  with  the  Duke  in  the  Penin- 
sula and  at  Waterloo.     He  was  at  this  time  Master 
General  of  the  Ordnance,  and  therefore  second  only 
to  the  Commander-in -Chief,  Lord  Hardinge.     He 
was  sixty-six,  and  it  was  long  since  he  had  been  in 
battle.     From  a  military  point  of  view,  Sir  Colin 
Campbell,  afterwards  Lord  Clyde,  would  probably 
have  been  a  better  choice.     But  the  command  was 
a  peculiar  one,  and  required  diplomatic  as  well  as 
soldierly   aptitude.       It   was    necessary   that    the 
English  commander  should  act  in  concert  with  the 
French,   and  for  this   purpose   Lord   Raglan   was 
peculiarly  well  fitted.     For  he   had  a   charm   of 
manner  which  no  one  could  resist,  and  that  perfect 
tact  which  seems  to  come  only  by  instinct.     He 


336    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  had  need  of  it  all.  For  his  colleague  was  Achille 
^k  Arnaud,  formerly  Jacques  Leroy,  since  Decem- 
ber 1851  a  Marshal  of  France.  This  man  was  a 
dashing  soldier  of  fortune,  and  had  shown  capacity, 
as  well  as  energy,  in  Algiers.  He  had  also  the  rare 
sort  of  courage,  or  rather  endurance,  which  enables 
a  man  to  appear  in  public  and  on  horseback  while 
suffering  agony  from  a  mortal  disease.  But  he 
was  an  adventurer  of  the  lowest  type,  and  to  be 
the  chief  of  an  army  he  had  no  real  qualification. 
His  appointment  was  a  scandal,  and  it  was  a  degrada- 
tion for  England,  not  the  last  which  Louis  Napoleon 
inflicted  on  her,  that  one  of  her  most  chivalrous 
soldiers  should  be  associated  with  a  midnight  plotter 
who  had  been  bought  for  money.  Of  the  fleet 
which  was  to  operate  in  the  Baltic  the  Government 

Admiral      placed  Admiral   Sir  Charles  Napier,   the  hero  of 

Napier? es  Acre,  at  the  head.  Sir  Charles,  though  he  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  action,  was  very  much  inferior 
to  his  cousin  and  namesake,  the  conqueror  of  Scinde, 
nor  did  he  justify  the  confidence  reposed  in  him. 
He  was  sent  off,  however,  with  a  great  flourish  of 

The  dinner  trumpets,  and  with  a  dinner  at  the  Reform  Club. 

Lform  At  this  dinner,  which  was  held  on  the  7th  of  March, 
Lord  Palmerston  presided,  and  delivered  a  speech 
of  laborious  jocosity  in  the  worst  possible  taste. 
Sir  James  Graham  followed,  and  in  the  style  of 
Thackeray's  Valoroso  gave  his  "gallant  friend" 
leave  to  declare  war.  A  few  days  afterwards  Mr. 
Bright  called  attention  to  these  unfortunate  speeches 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  with  the  full  assent 
of  many  who  did  not  share  his  views  about  the  war, 
declared  such  language  at  such  a  time  to  be  un- 
worthy "the  responsible  statesmen  of  a  civilised 
and  Christian  nation." 1  Lord  Palmerston's  reply 

1  Macaulay,  one  of  Palmerston's  warmest  admirers,  thus  wrote  in  his 
diary:  "Palmerston's  want  of  temper,  judgment,  and  good  breeding, 
was  almost  incredible.  He  did  himself  more  harm  in  three  minutes 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     337 

was  a  repetition  and  aggravation  of  the  offence.  1854. 
He  began  by  calling  Mr.  Bright  "  the  honourable 
and  reverend  gentleman."  He  went  on  to  describe 
him  as  unfit  to  be  a  member  of  the  Reform  Club, 
and  continued  in  a  similar  strain.  But  for  once  he 
had  failed  to  hit  the  temper  of  the  House,  and  his 
impertinences  fell  flat.  Sir  Charles  Napier's  per- 
formances in  the  Baltic  were  trivial  and  futile. 
Elsewhere  the  war  was  grimly  tragical,  and  there 
could  hardly  have  been  a  less  fitting  prelude  to  it 
than  a  Secretary  of  State  playing  the  part  of  an 
elderly  buffoon. 

The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  introduced  his  March « 
Budget  in  a  very  different  spirit.  He  was  able  to 
pronounce  that  British  finance  was  on  a  sound  and 
solid  footing.  But  for  the  estimates  required  by  the 
approaching  war,  there  would  have  been  a  surplus 
of  eleven  hundred  thousand  pounds.  As  it  was,  he 
had  to  reckon  upon  a  deficiency  of  nearly  three 
millions,  to  meet  which  he  proposed  that  the  Income 
Tax  should  be  doubled  for  half  the  year,  and  the 
whole  of  it  collected  in  the  first  six  months.  He 
strongly  protested  against  having  recourse  to  a  loan, 
which  he  described  as  "  not  required  by  our  necessi- 
ties, and  not  worthy  of  our  adoption."  The  Budget 
was  passed  without  the  smallest  difficulty,  although 
Mr.  Disraeli  denounced  what  he  called  "  a  Coalition 
War,"  and  exclaimed,  "  You  are  going  to  war  with 
an  opponent  who  does  not  want  to  fight,  and  you 
are  unwilling  to  encounter  him."  It  was  a  fixed 
idea  with  Disraeli  that  either  a  Whig  or  a  Tory 
Administration  would  have  kept  the  peace,  though 
he  never  committed  himself  to  disapproval  of  the 
war,  and  he  declined  Mr.  Gladstone's  challenge  to 
a  vote  of  no  confidence.  Mr.  Disraeli,  however, 

than  all  his  enemies  and  detractors  throughout  the  world  have  been 
able  to  do  him  in  twenty  years." — Trevelyan's  Life  of  Macaulay,  vol.  ii. 
p.  378. 

VOL.  I  Z 


338   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  to  do  him  justice,  abstained  from  the  wild  and 
undignified  abuse  of  Russia  in  which  many  who 
should  have  set  a  higher  example  indulged.  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  for  instance,  to  the  great  delight 
of  Lord  Clarendon,  declared  that  the  war  was 
Kuasian  a  "  just  and  inevitable  quarrel "  with  a  country 
o£rkishd  which  had  been  guilty  of  religious  intolerance. 
As  a  prominent  supporter  of  Jewish  disabilities, 
Lord  Shaftesbury  was  a  good  judge  of  intoler- 
ance ;  but  when  he  came  to  contrast  the  mild 
and  tolerant  rule  of  the  Sultan  with  the  ferocious 
bigotry  of  the  Czar,  even  Lord  Clarendon  must  have 
smiled.  For  the  conversion  of  a  Mohammedan  to 
Christianity  is  by  the  Koran  a  capital  offence,  and 
it  is  extremely  improbable  that  the  offender  would 
in  Turkey  be  left  to  the  slow  operation  of  the  law. 
The  treaty  between  England  and  France  for 
preserving  the  integrity  of  the  Ottoman  Empire, 
and  the  balance  of  power  in  Europe,  was  signed 
on  the  12th  of  March.  Well  might  the  French 
Emperor  say,  with  the  successful  villain  in  the  story, 
"  The  ways  of  Providence  sometimes  appear  to  be 
crooked.  They  are  in  reality  straight."  Little 
more  than  two  years  had  elapsed  since  his  murder- 
ous usurpation  of  supreme  power  in  France  against 
the  ordinances  which  he  had  sworn  to  obey,  and 
now  he  was  joining  himself  with  the  Queen  of 
England  to  defend  the  public  law  of  Europe  against 
a  legitimate  Sovereign  whose  methods  were  at  least 
above  board.  For  Jonathan  Wild  the  Little  this 
was  elevation  indeed.  Englishmen  proud  of  their 
country's  honour  could  scarcely  regret  that  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  was  dead.  On  the  24th  of 
March  the  Russians  crossed  the  Danube  at  three 
points,  and  invaded  Turkey.  On  the  28th,  the  day 
that  war  was  formally  declared  between  England 
and  Russia,  the  Greek  Minister  left  Constanti- 
nople, the  Turkish  Minister  left  Athens,  and  Greek 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     339 

residents  were  expelled  from  the  Turkish  Empire.  1354. 
The  Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte  were  unhappily  *ftgj 
too  scattered  and  too  disorganised  to  rise  in  a  body 
and  throw  off  the  tyranny  by  which  they  were 
oppressed.  But  they  did  rebel  in  Epirus  ;  they 
were  very  properly  supported  by  the  King  of 
Greece,  and  it  required  the  active  intervention 
of  two  Christian  Powers  to  keep  these  Christians 
down.  The  same  number  of  the  London  Gazette 
which  contained  the  declaration  of  war  announced  waiver  of 

••  .  >  i  i      •          the  right  of 

also  that  the  right  to  seize  enemy  s  goods,  not  being  search. 
contraband  of  war,  in  neutral  vessels  would  during 
the  continuance  of  hostilities  be  waived. 


The  Queen's  Message  of  War  was  considered 
by  both  Houses  of  Parliament  on  the  31st  of 
March.  By  this  time  Turkey,  as  well  as  France, 
was,  in  the  strict  and  proper  sense  of  the  term, 
an  ally  of  Great  Britain,  for  on  the  10th  of 
March  the  Western  Powers  had  entered  into  a  Treaty 
treaty  with  the  Sultan,  by  which  they  pledged  weE 
themselves  to  defend  Turkey  with  their  arms  532?  "K 
until  the  conclusion  of  a  peace  should  have 
secured  His  Majesty's  rights  and  the  "  independ- 
ence of  the  Ottoman  Empire."  When  such  a 
peace  had  been  concluded  they  were  to  withdraw  all 
their  forces  from  Turkish  territory.  The  Sultan 
undertook  to  make  no  separate  peace  or  armistice 
with  Russia.  This  singular  instrument  was,  in  the 
language  of  the  Roman  law,  a  leonine  contract,  by 
which  Turkey  took  everything  and  gave  nothing. 
The  Sultan  received  from  the  greatest  naval,  and 
one  of  the  greatest  military,  Powers  in  the  world  a 
promise  to  protect  him  in  the  permanent  and  un- 
limited enjoyment  of  rights  which  he  had  grievously 
abused.  He  said  on  his  part,  no  doubt  with 
Oriental  gravity,  that  in  consideration  of  support 
which  was  worth  as  much  to  him  as  his  kingdom 
he  would  graciously  abstain  from  placing  himself 


340   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  in  the  hands  of  his  most  deadly  foe.  If  the  Opposi- 
tion in  England  had  had  the  courage  to  denounce 
this  covenant  as  insane,  the  historian  would  have  to 
confess  that  they  had  chosen  the  word  in  the  Eng- 
lish language  best  fitted  to  describe  it.  If  there 
had  been  an  Opposition  in  France  things  would 
have  gone  hardly  with  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys.  But 
England  was  deluded,  and  France  was  enslaved. 
It  was  not  easy  to  frame  the  Queen's  Message  to 
Parliament  in  appropriate  words  without  justifying 
the  speeches  of  Bright,  Cobden,  and  Grey.  Her 
Majesty's  Ministers  were  equal  to  the  occasion. 
Having  just  made  Turkey  into  an  ally,  they  boldly 
stated  that  allies  must  be  supported.  They  further 
alleged  that  the  independence  of  that  ally,  which 
was  a  transparent  fiction,  was  essential  to  the  peace 
of  Europe,  which  they  had  just  broken  themselves. 
Finally,  they  intimated  their  resolve  to  save  Europe 
from  the  preponderance  of  a  Power  which  had 
violated  the  faith  of  treaties,  though  the  only 
treaty  which  had  been  violated  was  the  Treaty  of 
Kainardji,  and  though  that  treaty  had  been  violated 
by  Turkey  in  the  interests  of  France.  Such  are 
the  shifts  to  which  men  are  driven  when  they  dare 
not  speak  the  truth.  For  the  truth  was  that  the 
United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  had 
been  dragged  into  a  war  from  which  they  could 
gain  nothing,  and  might  lose  much  through  the 
restless  ambition  of  Louis  Napoleon,  supported  in 
the  Cabinet  by  Lord  Palmerston,  and  outside  it 
by  Lord  Stratford,  both  personal  enemies  of  the 
Emperor  Nicholas.  Another  point  which  Lord 
Derby  and  Mr.  Disraeli  might  fairly  have  taken, 
though  not  an  equally  good  one,  was  the  haste 
which  despatched  the  Ultimatum  of  the  27th  of 
February  without  waiting  for  the  response  of 
Austria  and  Prussia  to  the  offers  of  the  Czar.  For 
the  only  cause  of  the  war  which  would  bear  a 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     341 

moment's  critical  examination  was  the  dangerous  1354. 
preponderance  of  Russia  in  the  affairs  of  Europe,  ™* 
and  that  was  a  question  for  Europe  as  a  whole.  European 

ii  •  i  i          TI  question. 

It  is  practically  certain  that  even  the  Emperor 
Nicholas,  arbitrary  and  despotic  as  he  was,  would 
have  yielded  to  demands  which  the  four  Powers 
were  prepared  to  back  by  force,  though  it  is 
doubtful  whether  his  brother-in-law,  the  King  of 
Prussia,  and  his  personal  favourite,  the  Emperor  of 
Austria,  would  have  fought  for  anything  except 
and  beyond  the  evacuation  of  Wallachia  and  Mol- 
davia. This,  however,  it  will  be  remembered,  was 
the  subject,  and  the  sole  subject,  of  the  final  and 
fatal  despatches  addressed  to  Count  Nesselrode  by 
Lord  Clarendon  and  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys.  But 
the  Opposition  threw  away  their  chances.  They 
were  as  blind  as  the  Government.  They  listened 
complacently  in  the  House  of  Lords  while  Lord 
Clarendon  talked  about  Poland  and  the  independ- 
ence of  Europe,  forgetting  that  the  Czar  might 
with  equal  relevance  talk  about  Ireland,  and  that 
the  real  ruler  of  Turkey  was  an  Englishman.  Lord 
Derby  did,  indeed,  point  out,  with  perfect  justice, 
that  there  had  been  no  deception  on  the  part  of 
Russia,  who  had  avowed  from  the  first  that  she 
claimed  a  general  protectorate  over  the  millions  of 
Christians  in  Turkey  professing  the  faith  of  the 
Greek  Church.  But  from  that  he  passed  to  a  per- 
sonal eulogy  of  the  French  Emperor,  which  was 
most  offensive  to  the  more  serious  part  of  the 
French  nation.  Among  the  numerous  evils  pro- 
duced by  alliance  with  Louis  Napoleon,  not  the 
least  was  the  profound  and  prolonged  alienation 
from  England  of  the  best  intellects  and  the  best 
characters  in  France. 

Lord  Aberdeen,  who  disapproved  of  the  Russian 
War  in  1854  as  much  as  Mr.  Pitt  disapproved  of 
the  French  War  in  1793,  compared  himself  with 


342   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  Falkland,  the  ingeminator  of  peace.  Lord  Aber- 
deen  ls  morally,  though  not  of  course  constitu- 
Aberdeen  tionally,  free  from  responsibility  for  the  Crimean 
War.  For  the  notion  that  if  he  had  spoken  more 
firmly  the  Czar  would  have  given  way  is  akin  to 
the  Chinese  theory  that  battles  can  be  won  by 
wearing  hideous  masks,  and  uttering  horrible 
sounds.  The  Czar  would  have  yielded  to  united 
Europe,  and  to  nothing  else.  The  real  charge 
against  Lord  Aberdeen  is  that,  like  Pitt,  he  re- 
mained in  office,  and  carried  out  a  policy  which  his 
judgment  condemned.  The  defence  of  Pitt  lies 
outside  the  scope  of  this  work.  The  defence  of 
The  answer.  Lord  Aberdeen  is  that  he  believed  his  continuance 
at  the  head  of  the  Government  was  the  only  chance 
of  preserving  peace.  It  is  an  inadequate  plea,  not 
because  he  failed — 'tis  not  in  mortals  to  command 
success  —  but  because,  from  the  best  possible 
motives  he  condoned  what  he  felt  to  be  a  blunder 
and  a  crime.  To  say  at  what  precise  point  he 
should  have  resigned  is  difficult.1  But  it  should 
have  been  before  the  issue  of  the  despatch  which 
sent  Admiral  Dundas  into  the  Black  Sea.  He 
would  certainly  have  done  so  if  he  had  con- 
sulted his  own  ease  and  dignity.  The  venomous 
attacks  of  Mr.  Disraeli,  who  always  seemed  to 
resent  the  Coalition  as  a  personal  grievance,  were 
the  smallest  of  the  trials  he  had  to  bear. 

Lord  John  Russell,   speaking  to   the  Queen's 
Message  in  the  House  of  Commons,  described  the 
The  Russian  Russian    interpretation   of   the   Vienna    Note   as 
tttftS  fraudulent.     He  might  as  well  have  called  it  homi- 
Notena       cidal.     It  was  the  meaning  which  any  lawyer  re- 
tained by  Russia  would  have  put  upon  it  before  an 
international  tribunal,  and  in   all  probability  the 
Court  would  have  decided  in  his  favour.     For  it 

1  He  might  have  insisted  on  Turkey  being  told  that  if  she  went  to 
war  with  Russia  she  would  not  be  supported  by  England. 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     343 

was  also,  as  Lord  John  conveniently  forgot,  the  in- 1354. 
terpretation  of  the  Turks  themselves,  though  it  was 
doubtless  suggested  to  them  by  the  British  Ambas- 
sador at  Constantinople.  Mr.  Bright  and  Lord 
Granby,  in  strange  alliance,  argued,  without  being 
answered,  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  demands 
of  Russia  which  the  Sultan  ought  to  have 
refused.  Their  reasonings  were  unheeded.  A  still 
stranger  alliance  was  at  hand.  It  was  signed  The  second 
between  Great  Britain  and  France  on  the  10th  of  F^ch 
April.  It  bound  them  to  united  action  in  favour  Treaty- 
of  the  most  desolating  tyranny  which  has  ever 
afflicted  Europe.  In  this  treaty,  not  now  other- 
wise remarkable,  England  and  France  renounced 
all  aim  at  separate  advantages,  and  declared  their 
readiness  to  receive  into  their  alliance  any  of  the 
other  European  Powers.  The  renunciation  was 
nugatory,  for  neither  joint  nor  separate  advantages 
were  or  could  be  obtained  either  by  England  or  by 
France.  But  the  last  clause — the  invitation  clause 
— led  to  consequences  which  no  one  at  that  time 
foresaw  except  the  sagacious  and  long  -  sighted 
Minister  of  King  Victor  Emmanuel.1  This  treaty 
had  been  immediately  preceded  by  a  protocol 
drawn  up  at  Vienna  on  the  9th  of  April  in  the 
names  of  Count  Buol,  the  Austrian  Chancellor, 
Count  Bourqueney,  the  French  Ambassador,  Lord 
Westmorland,  the  British  Ambassador,  and  the 
Prussian  Minister,  Count  Arnim.  By  this  docu- 
ment the  four  Powers  acknowledged  the  declara- 
tion of  war  to  be  founded  in  right,  though  in  what 
right  was  not  stated,  and  added  that  they  agreed  in 
the  object  of  reconciling  the  liberties  of  the  Porte 's 
Christian  subjects  with  the  independence  of  the 
Sultan  and  the  integrity  of  his  dominions.  But 
the  claims  of  the  butcher  are  not  to  be  reconciled 
with  the  liberty  of  the  lamb.  On  the  llth  of 

1  Count  Camillo  Benso  Cavour. 


344    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  April,  the  day  after  the  treaty,  and  two  days  after 
the  protocol,  the  Emperor  of  Russia  put  forth  his 
declaration  of  war,  asserting  that  "England  and 
The  czar's  France  have  ranged  themselves  by  the  side  of  the 
appeauo  enemies  of  Christianity  against  Russia  fighting  for 
*'  the  orthodox  faith."  As  a  rule,  when  monarchs 
vicariously  take  up  arms,  the  less  they  say  about 
religion  the  better.  But  in  this  case  the  Czar  was 
not,  at  least  technically,  the  aggressor,  and  he 
could  say  with  perfect  truth  that  he  was  waging  a 
religious  war.  A  religious  war  may  be  the  worst 
and  wickedest  of  all  wars.  That  Russia  was  fight- 
ing for  her  co-religionists  in  Turkey  did  not  prove 
that  her  adversaries  were  in  the  wrong.  The  fact, 
however,  could  not  be  denied  by  any  one,  and  that 
being  so,  it  was  natural  that  the  Czar  should  appeal 
to  the  pious  enthusiasm  of  his  subjects. 

The  war  was  now  a  reality,  and  nothing  else 
was  regarded  in  England.  Lord  John  Russell, 
after  many  threats  of  resignation,  yielded  to 
withdrawal  his  colleagues  and  withdrew  his  Reform  Bill  on 
Reform  BUI.  the  llth  of  April.  On  this  occasion  he  shed 
tears,  which  moved  the  House  of  Commons  to 
sympathy  at  the  time,  though  it  is  difficult  not 
to  smile  at  them  now.  The  wounded  vanity 
of  an  egoistical  Minister  might  have  found  some 
more  suitable  time  for  its  exhibition  than  the 
approach  of  a  conflict  which  was  to  throw  half 
England  into  mourning.  About  a  fortnight  later 
Lord  John  had  a  more  serious  task  to  fulfil.  He 
had  to  defend  the  expulsion  of  Greek  residents 
from  Turkey  against  the  indignant  protest  of  Mr. 
Cobden.  It  was  an  absolutely  lawless  act,  and  it 
was  carried  out  with  extreme  harshness.  But 
Turkey  was  now  our  "ally,"  and  everything  she 
did  had  to  be  defended.  Indeed,  before  the  month 
of  May  was  out  England  and  France  actually 
declared  the  ports  of  Greece  to  be  blockaded, 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     345 

because  the  Greek  Christians  of  Epirus  had  risen  1354. 
in  revolt  against  intolerable  wrong.     And  this  was  JJ»« 

n  111  1111-11      blockade  of 

the  act  of  statesmen  who  had  applauded  the  battle  Greekp°rts 
of  Navarino. 

Lord  Raglan  arrived  at  Constantinople  at  the 
beginning  of  May,  and  was  followed  by  Marshal 
St.  Arnaud,  whom  he  had  previously  met  in  Paris 
on  the  llth  of  April.  At  the  same  time  Mr. 
Gladstone  announced  to  the  House  of  Commons  Mays, 
that  the  Income  Tax  must  be  doubled  for  the 
whole  year,  and  not  merely  for  six  months.  It 
was  thus  raised  from  sevenpence  to  one  and  two- 
pence in  the  pound.  A  shilling  a  gallon  was 
added  to  the  duty  on  Scottish  whisky,  and 
eightpence  a  gallon  to  the  duty  on  Irish.  An 
additional  sixpence  was  levied  upon  each  hundred- 
weight of  sugar,  and  the  malt  tax  was  raised 
from  two  and  ninepence  to  four  shillings.  All 
these  were  to  be  considered  as  war  taxes,  except 
the  tax  on  sugar.  Mr.  Gladstone's  speech  was 
not  much  to  the  taste  of  the  war  party  in  the 
House.  He  protested  once  more  against  war 
loans,  though  by  the  issue  of  Exchequer  Bills 
he  anticipated  to  some  extent  the  ingathering  of 
the  taxes.  He  showed  the  bad  effect  of  the  loans 
raised  by  Pitt  in  the  early  years  of  the  war  with 
France,  and  contrasted  them  with  the  results  of 
the  Income  Tax  which  the  same  statesman  after- 
wards imposed.  The  pressure  of  taxation  was 
needed,  said  Mr.  Gladstone,  to  dissuade  people 
from  entering  lightly  into  quarrels,  and  from  con- 
tinuing them  after  their  objects  had  been  attained. 
This  was  unpopular  doctrine,  but  none  the  less 
wholesome  for  that.  The  Budget  passed  without 
opposition.  The  country  was  in  a  mood  to  make 
any  sacrifices  for  the  war. 

On  the  19th  of  May  a  conference  was  held  at 
Varna,  a  Turkish  port  in  the  Black  Sea,  between 


346    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  Lord   Raglan,    Marshal    St.    Arnaud,    and    Omar 
The  first     Pasha.       Six   days   after    it    British    and    French 

council  of  -1111        -r-»'  T7--  /^v 

war-  troops  were  landed  at  the  Piraeus,  King  Otho  was 
compelled  to  sign  a  declaration  of  neutrality,  and 
the  Greek  ships  of  war  in  the  harbour  were  seized. 
This  high-handed  step  was  followed,  as  has  already 
been  said,  by  a  blockade  of  the  Greek  ports. 

The  new          At  this  time  important  changes  were  made  in 

swpof17"  the  Cabinet,  and  in  the  organisation  of  the  public 
service,  for  which  most  of  the  credit  belongs  to 
Lord  John  Russell.  Hitherto  there  had  been  no 
separate  Secretary  of  State  for  War.  The 
Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies  was  the 
Secretary  for  War  also.  The  Secretary  at  War, 
though  he  sometimes,  as  in  1853  and  1854,  sat  in 
the  Cabinet,  was  subordinate  to  the  Commander- 
in-Chief,  and  had  only  financial  duties  to  perform. 
He  resembled  as  nearly  as  possible  the  Financial 
Secretary  to  the  War  Office  of  our  day.  But  he 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  commissariat,  which 
was  under  the  Treasury,  with  the  ordnance,  which 
was  under  a  Board,  or  with  the  militia,  who  were 
under  the  Home  Office.  This  arrangement, 
though  it  existed  throughout  the  Peninsular  cam- 
paign, was  not  adapted  to  the  exigencies  of  modern 
warfare.  The  Government  of  Lord  Aberdeen, 
with  the  sanction  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
created  a  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  and  removed 
the  care  of  the  commissariat  from  the  Treasury  to 
the  War  Office.  With  the  other  anomalies  they 
did  not  meddle.  The  first  Secretary  of  State  for 

The  Duke  of  War  was  unluckily  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  the 
>Ue>  one  incompetent  administrator  trained  by  Sir 
Robert  Peel.  The  best  man  for  the  post  would 
have  been,  as  events  afterwards  proved,  Mr. 
Cardwell.  But  Lord  Palmerston  would  have  been 
far  better  than  the  Duke.  Lord  John  Russell 
refused  the  Colonies,  and  at  his  earnest  request 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR    347 

the  Colonial  Office  was  given  to  Sir  George  Grey,  1354. 
then  Member  for  Morpeth,  as  some  reparation  for 
the  injustice  with  which  Lord  John  thought  that 
the  Whigs  had  been  treated  when  the  Cabinet 
was  formed.  Lord  John  had  claims  of  his  own.  Lord  John* 
He  was  tired  of  being  without  a  salary,  and  heciS. 
insisted  on  being  President  of  the  Council.  No 
commoner  had  held  this  position  since  the  reign 
of  Henry  the  Eighth.  That  no  doubt  was  a 
technicality  and  a  trifle.  The  substantial  difficulty 
was  that  Lord  Granville  held  it,  and  that  there 
was  no  excuse  for  turning  him  out.  But  while  the 
rest  of  the  world  had  been  thinking  of  the  war 
Lord  John  had  been  thinking  of  himself,  with  the 
result  that  the  Presidency  of  the  Council  he  must 
and  would  have.  Lord  Aberdeen  should  have 
peremptorily  refused  to  comply  with  so  shameless 
a  demand.  But  he  still  regarded  Lord  John  as 
indispensable,  and  Lord  Granville,  the  most  modest 
of  men,  stepped  down  to  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster. 
The  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy,  Mr.  Strutt,  was 
removed  from  the  Government  altogether,  to  be 
subsequently  consoled  with  the  Barony  of  Belper. 
Still  Lord  John  was  not  satisfied.  He  thought 
that  he  ought  to  have  all  the  patronage,  with  the 
direction  of  every  department,  and  he  continued 
to  worry  Lord  Aberdeen  with  letters  which  it  is 
hard  to  believe  that  one  gentleman  could  have 
brought  himself  to  write,  and  another  gentleman 
could  have  brought  himself  to  endure.1  Mean- 
while Lord  Lyndhurst,  then  in  the  prime  of  his  Lord 

J.  ,       .  Lyndhurst 

octogenarian  vigour,  thought  it  necessary  to  come 
forward,  and  to  warn  his  countrymen  against  the 
spirit  of  moderation.  As  if  there  were  a  danger 
that  the  policy  and  designs  of  Russia  would  be 
too  charitably  construed,  he  set  himself  to  inflame 

1  Sir  Spencer  Walpole's  Life  of  Lord  John   Russell,   vol.   ii.   pp. 
227-237. 


,348    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  passions,  and  to  inculcate  revenge.  It  was  a 
wonderful  display  of  eloquence  and  power,  but  no 
demagogue  engaged  in  "  setting  class  against  class  " 
was  ever  more  justly  liable  to  the  censure  of  the 
historian.  Lord  Clarendon  took  the  opportunity 
afforded  him  by  Lord  Lyndhurst  to  express  his 
confident  belief  that  Austria  would  take  the  field 
on  behalf  of  the  allies.  It  is  strange  that  he  should 
have  clung  to  this  expectation,  which  Lord 
Palmerston  never  shared.  But  Lord  Westmor- 
land, the  British  Ambassador  at  Vienna,  was  not 
competent  to  his  post,  and  did  not  keep  his 
Government  properly  informed.  In  this  debate 
Lord  Derby,  declaring  that  the  Black  Sea  must 
not  be  made  "  a  Russian  lake,"  pointed  out  what 
should  have  been  abundantly  clear,  that  neither 
Austria  nor  Prussia  cared  for  anything  beyond  the 
LordAber-  evacuation  of  the  Principalities.  Lord  Aberdeen 
JmdeVc"  expressed  his  hope  of  an  early  peace,  and  with 
chivalrous  imprudence  defended  Russia  from  the 
charge  of  being  an  aggressive  Power.  He  said 
nothing  which  was  not  true.  "Aggressive"  is  a 
comparative  term,  and  the  Emperor  Nicholas  must 
have  regarded  Lord  Dalhousie  with  envy  and 
despair.  But  at  that  moment  to  say  a  word  for 
Russia  was  treason,  and  Lord  Aberdeen  had  a  few 
nights  afterwards  to  explain  that  he  did  not  really 
want  a  Russian  garrison  at  Constantinople. 
The  The  news  from  the  seat  of  war  was  at  this  time 

of?hnenwlk  favourable.  In  the  Baltic  the  Aland  Islands  were 
seized,  and  the  fortress  of  Bomarsund  destroyed  by 
Napier's  fleet.  The  Turkish  garrison  of  Silistria 
on  the  Danube  had  been  long  besieged  by  Russian 
troops,  and  its  surrender  was  expected.  But 
through  the  skill  and  enterprise  of  two  young 
English  officers,  Captain  Butler  and  Lieutenant 
Nasmyth,  Silistria  held  out  until  on  the  23rd  of 
of'siiiswa.  June  the  siege  was  raised.  Five  days  afterwards 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     349 

the  Cabinet  dined  with  Lord  John  Russell  at  1354. 
Pembroke  Lodge,  and  while  the  Duke  of  New- 
castle read  his  momentous  despatch,  proposing  that 
invasion  of  the  Crimea  upon  which  the  whole 
course  of  the  war  depended,  some  of  the  Ministers  The  drowsy 
fell  asleep.  This  was  the  sort  of  incident  in  which  Ct 
Kinglake  delighted,  and  he  has  made  the  most  of 
it.1  It  is  not  perhaps  very  creditable  to  responsible 
statesmen  at  such  a  time.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact 
the  question  had  been  previously  decided,  and  the 
despatch  represented  the  opinions  of  the  sleepers, 
as  well  as  of  those  who  kept  awake.2  The  truth  is 
that  everybody  was  calling  for  the  invasion  of  the 
Crimea,  and  that  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  coincided 
with  public  opinion  when  he  proposed  it.  The 
Times,  then  at  the  height  of  its  power  and 
influence,  took  up  and  enforced  the  popular  view, 
as  in  the  Cabinet  did  Lord  Palmerston. 

The  Crimea,  the  peninsula  which  Southern  rue  Crimea. 
Russia  projects  into  the  Black  Sea,  is  the  Tauric 
Chersonese  of  the  ancients,  familiar  to  all  readers  of 
Euripides.  Its  supreme  importance  was  that  it 
contained  the  great  naval  arsenal  of  Sebastopol, 
the  harbour  of  Russia's  southern  fleet,  and  the 
most  valuable  of  all  the  Czar's  resources  in  time 
of  war.  The  Duke  of  Newcastle's  despatch  to 
Lord  Raglan  was  not  peremptory  in  its  terms, 
and  left  the  General's  discretion  formally  un- 
fettered. But  Lord  Raglan  was  a  sensitive  man, 
and  though  he  had  serious  doubts  about  the 
wisdom  of  the  plan  himself,  he  felt  that  the  de- 
spatch was  a  challenge,  if  not  a  command,  and 
he  prepared  to  obey  orders.  The  policy  of  the 
whole  Cabinet,  including  Lord  Aberdeen,  was 
to  carry  on  the  war,  now  that  it  had  actually 

1  Invasion   of  the   Crimea,   vol.    ii.   pp.   93-95.      See  also   note   in 
Appendix. 

*  Walpole's  Life  of  Lord  John  Russell,  vol.  ii.  p.  223. 


350    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  begun,  with  all  possible  despatch,  and  the  inva- 
sion of  the  Crimea  was  not  only  feasible,  but 
judicious.  It  was  the  shortest  road  to  success, 
if  only  it  had  been  quickly  followed.  Ministers 
were  not  backward.  Before  the  end  of  July  they 
had  obtained  a  vote  of  credit  for  three  millions 
from  the  House  of  Commons,  after  a  speech  in 
which  Lord  Palmerston,  referring  to  the  French 
alliance,  emphatically  exclaimed,  "  I  care  not  whc 
else  joins  us,  or  who  else  stands  aloof!" 

On  the  2nd  of  August  the  Russians,  harassed 
by  Omar  Pasha's  troops,  and  threatened  by  the 
Central  Powers,  recrossed  the  Pruth.  Thus  the 
The  evacua-  Danubian  Principalities  were  evacuated,  and  the 
Cities  ostensible  object  of  the  war  was  achieved.  It 
mattered  not  that  they  were  evacuated  at  the 
bidding  of  Austria,  who  occupied  them  herself 
before  the  end  of  the  month.  The  thing  was 
done.  Turkey  in  Europe  was  free  from  the 
invader,  and  there  was  no  longer  any  material 
guarantee  for  the  protectorate  of  Greek  Christians 
which  Russia  claimed.  But  the  war  went  on  as  if 
nothing  had  happened.  On  the  6th  of  August  the 
Turks  suffered  a  heavy  defeat  at  Kuruk-Dere, 
owing  to  the  incompetence  of  their  commander, 
The  siege  Kurshid  Pasha,  and  were  shut  up  for  many  weary 
months  at  Kars.  When  Parliament  was  pro- 
rogued on  the  twelfth,  no  practical  means  had 
been  taken  to  carry  out  the  plan  of  campaign 
suggested  by  the  Cabinet  through  the  Secretary 
of  State  for  War.  Lord  Raglan  was  not  his  own 
j^gj-g^  Before  he  could  move  a  step,  he  had  to 
obtain  the  concurrence  of  his  French  colleague, 
who  was  appointed  not  because  of  what  he  knew 
about  war,  but  because  of  what  he  knew  about 
Louis  Napoleon. 

The  session  of  1854  was  not  a  triumphant  one 
for  the  Government.     Whatever  they  wanted  for 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR    351 

the  war  they  readily  obtained,  but  on  other  sub- 1354. 
iects  they  were  at  the  mercy  of  a  capricious  and  Theoove 

n  •  •  t  T*T  /»      s~*  ment  and 

fluctuating  mass  in  the  Mouse  or  Commons. 
Indeed  Lord  John  Russell  had  less  hold  upon 
that  House  than  Lord  Aberdeen  had  upon  the 
House  of  Lords.  Lord  Malmesbury  records  in 
his  diary  for  the  12th  of  May  a  characteristic  saying 
of  the  single-minded  patriot  who  sat  immediately 
opposite  to  Lord  John.  "  Disraeli  is  furious  with 
the  war,  which  he  thinks  keeps  the  Government 
in."  By  his  inexhaustible  torrent  of  sarcasm  and 
invective  Mr.  Disraeli  made  things  very  uncom- 
fortable for  the  Leader  of  the  House.  Nor  did 
he  lack  material.  Taking  up  the  Jewish  question 
once  more,  Lord  John,  in  a  very  sensible  Bill, 
proposed  to  substitute  a  simple  oath  of  allegiance 
for  all  the  cumbrous  forms  employed.  It  was  the 
most  rational  solution  of  the  difficulty  he  had  yet 
proposed.  But  it  united  with  the  opponents  of 
the  Jews  those  ardent  Protestants  who  took  a 
positive  pleasure  in  abjuring  the  Catholic  Faith, 
and  the  Bill  was  rejected  by  251  votes  to  247.  Defeat  of 
Mr.  Disraeli  voted  against  it  for  reasons  which  mint0™ 
never  had  any  weight,  and  at  this  distance  of  time 
have  lost  their  interest.  When  he  attacked  the 
Government  for  remaining  in  office  after  this 
defeat,  Lord  John  very  properly  replied  that  the 
country  was  in  a  state  of  war.  Nothing  but  a 
vote  of  No  Confidence  would  have  justified 
Ministers  in  resigning. 

The  Bill  for  the  reform  of  Oxford  University  The  Oxford 
produced  a  series  of  divisions  unfavourable  to  the  Bm.verslty 
Government,  some  of  which  were  reversed  in  the 
House  of  Lords.     The  Bill,  the  charter  of  modern 
Oxford,  substituted  a  new  governing  body  on  the 
elective  principle  for  the  old  Hebdomadal  Board, 
which  was  simply  the  Heads  of  Houses  ;  opened 
the  close  Fellowships  ;  made  a  provision  for  private 


352   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  halls ;  and  created  the  modern  Professoriate  by 
means  of  a  contribution  from  the  funds  of  the 
Colleges  to  the  funds  of  the  University  itself. 
Lord  John  had  no  personal  experience  of  Uni- 
versities, and  he  relied  much  upon  the  assistance 
of  Mr.  Gladstone.  But  Mr.  Gladstone  was  not  in 
those  days  an  ardent  reformer,  and  even  if  he 
had  been,  his  position  as  Member  for  Oxford 
would  have  stood  in  his  way.  The  result  was 
that  the  Bill  did  nothing  for  Dissenters,  who 
were  excluded  from  Oxford  because  they  could 
not  subscribe  to  the  Articles  of  the  Church  before 
The  Govern- matriculation.  An  amendment  to  abolish  this 
™efeated!m  subscription  was  carried  against  the  Government 
by  a  majority  of  91,  and  it  was  afterwards, 
with  the  assent  of  the  Treasury  Bench,  enlarged 
to  include  a  Bachelor's  degree.  From  fellow- 
ships, from  scholarships,  and  from  the  superior 
degrees,  which  conferred  the  right  of  voting  in  Con- 
vocation and  for  Parliament,  Nonconformists  were 
still  for  many  years  obstinately  excluded.  The  re- 
moval of  their  disabilities  was  supported  by  Lord 
Stanley,  Lord  Derby's  eldest  son,  who  remained 
through  life  a  moderate  Liberal,  though  he  did  not 
always  call  himself  by  the  name.  Lord  Derby 
himself  tried  to  weaken  the  Bill  in  the  Lords,  and 
strength  of  to  make  it  more  Conservative.  But  the  majorities 
against  him  were  so  conclusive  that  he  gave  up  the 
attempt  in  despair,  remarking  that  the  Govern- 
ment could  do  what  they  liked  in  that  House. 
This  great  social  and  intellectual  reform,  which 
admitted  to  Oxford,  though  not  to  places  of 
honour  and  emolument  in  it,  Nonconformists,  free- 
thinkers, Roman  Catholics,  and  Jews,  was  carried 
by  the  force  of  independent  Parliamentary  opinion 
against  the  Ministry  and  the  regular  Opposition 
combined.  Lord  John  Russell  was  so  much 
annoyed  by  the  obvious,  though  scarcely  surprising, 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     353 

decline  of  his  authority,   that  he  called  a  meet- 1354. 
ing  of  his  supporters  in  the  middle  of  July,  and 
remonstrated  with  them,  after  which  there  was  no  Lord  John » 
further  trouble  for  the  remainder  of  the  session.  po*1 
But  the  relations  between  the  Prime  Minister  and 
his  principal  lieutenant  were  strained  almost  to  the 
point   of  breaking.     Two  legal   reforms  of  more  Legal 
than  legal  importance  were  carried  before  the  pro- re 
rogation  of  1854.     A  last  tribute  was  paid  to  the 
genius  of  Bentham  by  the  repeal  of  the  usury  laws, 
and  jurors  who  had  conscientious  scruples  against 
taking  an  oath  were  permitted  to  affirm.     Another 
measure,   introduced   and   carried   by   Lord   John  purity  of 
Russell,  did  something  to  cheapen  and,  what  wasel< 
really  the  same  thing,  to  purify  elections  by  pro- 
viding that  full  accounts  must  be  published  after 
the  poll,   and  that  no  payment  should  be  made 
except  through  authorised  agents.     The  repeal  of 
the  Navigation  Laws,  having  falsified  all  the  pre- 
dictions of  its  opponents,  was  this  year  extended, 
with  much  public  advantage,  to  the  coasting  trade. 
During  the  summer  of  1854,   besides   her   other 
anxieties,  England  was  visited  by  a  serious  attack 
of  Asiatic  cholera.      The   sanitary  improvements  The  cholera. 
to  which  it  gave  rise  were  substantially  beneficial, 
and  thus  completely  justified  Lord   Palmerston's 
famous  advice  to  the   Presbytery  of  Edinburgh. 
Parliament  was  prorogued  by  the  Queen  in  person 
for   the   last    time   on   the  12th  of  August.     On 
such  occasions  it  was  customary  for  the  Speaker, 
then    Mr.    Shaw   Lefevre,    to   address    the    Sove- 
reign in  a  speech  reviewing  the  session.     But  the 
Queen  "disliked  receiving  instruction  in  public,"1 
and  henceforward  always  prorogued  Parliament  by 
Commission. 

By  the  beginning  of  August  the  English  and 
French  commanders  had  agreed  upon  the  general 

1  Queen  Victoria,  a  Biography,  by  Sidney  Lee,  p.  246 
VOL.  I  2  A 


354   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  plan  of  the  Crimean  expedition.  By  the  middle 
The  landing  of  September  thirty  thousand  French  soldiers, 
for«3.alli  :<l  twenty-seven  thousand  English,  and  seven  thousand 
Turks,  had  landed  at  Old  Fort,  in  Calamita  Bay. 
On  the  early  morning  of  the  19th,  in  mild  and 
lovely  weather,  they  began  their  march  to  Sebas- 
topol.  Their  strength  was  grievously  impaired  by 
cholera,  from  which  they  had  suffered  severely  ever 
since  their  landing,  and  before.1  But  sickness  did 
not  delay  their  advance,  and  on  the  20th  they  en- 
countered a  large  force  of  Russians  under  Prince 
Mentschikoff,  who  occupied  the  heights  above  the 
Kattieot  Alma.  The  Russian  army  consisted  of  fifty  thou- 
sand men,  effectively  placed  on  the  slopes  of  the 
hills  ascending  from  the  stream  now  famous  in 
history,  and  on  the  heights  above.  Their  front 
was  about  two  miles  long.  St.  Arnaud's  scheme 
was  bold  and  skilful.  But  the  execution  was 
slow,  and  the  French  were  not  able  to  effect  all 
that  their  gallantry  deserved.  The  allied  armies 
advanced  at  noon.  General  Bosquet's  division, 
the  one  closest  to  the  sea,  was  protected  by  the 
British  and  French  fleets.  Next  to  him,  on  the 
left,  was  Prince  Napoleon,  cousin  of  the  Emperor, 
and  a  far  abler  man,  but  not  distinguished  for  prowess 
in  the  field.  On  the  left  of  the  Prince  came  Sir 
De  Lacy  Evans's  Division,  and  on  his  left  again 
Sir  George  Brown's.  The  Duke  of  Cambridge 
nominally  commanded  the  Brigade  of  Guards.  But 
His  Royal  Highness  wanted  experience,  and  the 
man  who  really  led  the  Guards  to  victory  that 
day  was  Sir  Colin  Campbell,  Commander  of  the 
Highland  Brigade.  Sir  George  Cathcart,  with  the 
fourth  Division,  and  Lord  Lucan,  who  commanded 
the  Cavalry,  were  held  in  reserve.  The  Allies  were 
received  with  a  heavy  fire  from  the  Russian  artillery, 

1  The  disease  first  broke  out  at  Varna,  where  the  allied  armies  were 
encamped  hefore  the  sailing  of  the  expedition. 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     355 

and  their  advance  was  impeded  by  the  flames  from  1354. 
the  village  of  Bouliouk,  in  the  enemy's  centre,  which 
the  Russians  deliberately  fired.  The  Light  Division, 
Sir  George  Brown's,  crossed  the  river  under  great 
difficulties,  and  becoming  entangled  in  the  vineyards, 
were  compelled  to  form  again  as  they  best  could 
under  a  galling  fire.  Nevertheless,  aided  by  General 
Buller,  by  Major  Norcott  of  the  Rifle  Brigade,  by 
General  Bentinck  of  the  Foot  Guards,  and  above 
all  by  Sir  Colin  Campbell's  Highlanders,  they 
finally  captured  the  enemy's  chief  redoubt,  and 
thus  decided  the  fate  of  the  day.  For  by  the 
personal  order  of  Lord  Raglan  two  guns  were 
brought  up  to  this  position,  first  taken  by  Colonel 
Lacey  Yea,  of  the  Royal  Fusiliers,  and  these  guns 
effected  the  enemy's  discomfiture.  The  final  inci- 
dent of  the  battle,  which  lasted  about  three  hours, 
was  the  capture  of  a  Russian  battery  by  the  High- 
land Brigade.  After  that  the  Russians  retired, 
suffering  fearful  losses  from  the  British  artillery  as 
they  went,  but  not  pursued,  as  they  should  have  been, 
by  the  British  cavalry.  Although  no  more  than 
three  Russian  guns  were  finally  captured,  the  victory 
of  the  Alma  was  crushing,  and  ought  to  have  been 
decisive.  The  Russians  were  not  merely  defeated. 
They  were  routed  and  demoralised.  Their  losses 
were  enormous,  and  Prince  MentschikofF  was  so 
unnerved  that  he  did  not  even  send  a  despatch 
to  his  Sovereign.  He  rode  from  the  field  as  fast 
as  his  horse  would  carry  him.  The  Zouaves 
fought  splendidly,  and  General  Bosquet,  having 
no  Russians  immediately  in  front  of  him,  was 
able  to  turn  the  enemy's  flank.  But  the  stress  of 
the  conflict  was  borne  by  the  British  troops,  and 
the  effect  produced  upon  the  Russians  by  the 
Highlanders  was  invaluable.  They  were  ready, 
said  one  of  the  Russian  prisoners,  to  fight  men, 
but  not  devils,  meaning  the  Highland  Brigade. 


1854.  The  British  losses  were  362  killed  and  1640 
wounded.1  The  glorious  news  of  the  Alma  was 
closely  followed  in  England  by  a  false  report 
i-aisenews  that  Sebastopol  had  fallen.  The  rumour,  though 
believed  by  the  Turkish  Ambassador  in  London, 
the  editor  of  the  Times,  and  other  distinguished 
persons,  had  not  the  vestige  of  foundation  in  fact. 
But  there  was  one  excuse  for  it.  It  ought  to 
have  been  true.  If  Lord  Raglan  had  been  in 
sole  command  of  the  allied  forces,  he  would  have 
pushed  on  to  Sebastopol  the  day  after  the  battle, 
and  he  would  almost  certainly  have  carried  the 
town  by  assault.  Such  undoubtedly  was  the  view 
of  the  great  engineer  who  afterwards  fortified  it 
with  such  wonderful  skill.2  The  Russian  army  was 
broken  up,  and  its  commander  seemed  to  be  chiefly 
concerned  for  his  personal  safety.  Sebastopol  was 
totally  unprepared  for  a  siege,  and  Lord  Raglan 
urged  an  immediate  advance.  But  St.  Arnaud 
would  not  move.  He  pleaded  that  his  men  were 
tired,  which  was  palpably  untrue.  As  he  felt  his 
strength  failing,  he  clung  with  more  obstinate 
tenacity  to  his  command.  He  knew  that  his 
successor  had  been  already  appointed,  and  he  was 
determined  that  General  Canrobert  should  wait. 
On  the  23rd,  instead  of  the  21st,  the  Allies 
advanced,  and  on  the  26th  the  British  occupied 
Balaklava.  Lord  Raglan,  supported  by  that 
accomplished  seaman  Sir  Edmund  Lyons,  had 
already  proposed  that  the  Star  Fort,  on  the  north 
of  Sebastopol,  should  be  at  once  attacked.  If  this 
had  been  done,  it  was  the  opinion  of  General  Todle- 
ben,  the  best  in  Europe,  that  the  fort  would  have 
been  captured,  that  Sebastopol  would  have  fallen, 

1  Marshal  St  Arnaud  thought  fit  to  write,  and  the  Emperor  of  the 
French  to  print,  an  absurd  and  mendacious  letter,  hi  which  the 
Marshal  claimed  the  honours  of  the  day  for  himself,  and  even  implied 
that  he  had  had  the  direction  of  the  British  troops. 

8  General,  then  Colonel,  Todleben. 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     357 

and  that  the  campaign  would  have  been  brought  to  1354. 
an  end.  But  once  more  St.  Arnaud  objected,  and 
his  objection  necessarily  prevailed.  The  Napoleonic, 
miscalled  the  French,  alliance  cost  England  dear. 
It  had  been  originally  intended  that  Balaklava 
should  be  jointly  occupied  by  the  Allies.  But  the 
place  was  too  small,  and  another  arrangement  had 
to  be  made.  It  was  agreed  that  Lord  Raglan  The  British 
should  continue  to  occupy  Balaklava,  and  that  the  ^8itions.ch 
British  army  should  take  the  right  side  of  the  allied 
line,  with  the  necessary  liability  to  attack  from  the 
field  army  of  the  Russians.  The  French  encamped 
on  the  Bays  of  Kamiesh  and  Kazatch,  which  were 
far  more  convenient  for  landing  supplies.  On  the 
29th  of  September  Marshal  St.  Arnaud  died  on  Death  ot 
board  the  French  ship  JSerthollet,  to  which  he  had 
been  carried  by  the  sailors.  His  successor,  though 
not  qualified  for  high  command,  was  a  distinguished 
soldier,  who  had  seen  real  service  in  Algiers.  General  General 
Canrobert,  familiarly  known  among  the  English 
soldiers  as  "  Bob  Can't,"  engaged  as  he  had  been  in  the 
massacre  of  French  citizens  on  the  4th  of  December 
1851,  was  not  in  the  secret  counsels  of  the  "  Elysian 
brethren,"  and  on  the  other  hand  he  understood  the 
business  of  war.  He  was,  however,  liable  to  be 
hampered  by  orders  from  the  Emperor,  who  did 
not  understand  it  in  the  least,  while  he  himself, 
with  no  naval  experience,  had  under  him  Admiral 
Hamelin,  the  colleague  of  Admiral  Dundas.  Lord 
Raglan  impressed  upon  General  Canrobert  the 
expediency  of  a  rapid  and  summary  assault  upon 
Sebastopol.  But  Canrobert,  acting  in  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  spirit  of  his  instructions  from  the 
Tuileries,  refused  to  incur  the  necessary  losses,  and 
it  is  only  fair  to  add  that  the  chief  of  Lord  Raglan's 
engineering  staff,  Sir  John  Burgoyne,  concurred  sir  John 

.o       . ,        -S  i       /~i  A  j  •        i  •  Burgoyne's 

with  the  .b  rench  General.     Accordingly  the  siege-  opinion. 
trains  were  landed,  and  preparations  for  a  regular 


358   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  bombardment  were  made.  Three  weeks  were  thus 
lost  by  the  Allies,  during  which  Todleben,  and  the 
heroic  Admiral  Korniloff,  who  perished  early  in  the 
siege,  threw  up  the  works  against  which  French 
and  English  cannon  so  long  thundered  in  vain. 
Prince  Mentschikoff  took  no  steps  to  relieve  Sebas- 
topol  when  it  was  in  imminent  danger,  and  his 
whole  conduct  was  such  that  he  might  with  perfect 
justice  have  been  shot.  The  three  men  who  saved 
Sebastopol  in  the  autumn  of  1854  were  General 
Todleben,  General  Canrobert,  and  the  Emperor  of 
the  French. 

The  accounts  of  the  wounded  in  the  hospitals  of 

Scutari,  to  which  they  were  taken  after  the  Alma, 

excited  the  utmost  commiseration  at  home.     A  fund 

The  relief    was  opened  for  their  relief,  fifteen  thousand  pounds 

wouifded.    were  collected  in  a  fortnight,  and  the  conductors  of 

-rue  Times  the  Times  sent  out  Mr.  Macdonald  to  distribute  the 

The  Royai   money.     At  the  same  time  was  formed  the  Royal 

FunT IC     Patriotic  Fund,  which  reached  a  total  of  a  million 

and  a  quarter  sterling.     At  the  earnest  request  of 

Mr.    Sidney   Herbert,    Secretary    at    War,    Miss 

MI*  sight-  Florence    Nightingale,  the    most  famous    of    all 

nurses,  with  thirty-seven  assistants,  was  despatched 

to  Scutari.    After  this  the  condition  of  the  wounded 

greatly  improved.     But  the  sufferings  of  the  men 

in  the  trenches,  when  the  bombardment  had  once 

begun  on  the  17th  of  October,  grew  more  and  more 

nie  bom-    intense  as  the  season  advanced.     The  bombardment, 

Sevastopol0  by   advice   of  Sir  John   Burgoyne,   was   directed 

against  the  south  side  of  Sebastopol.     The  place 

was  not  invested,  and  the  garrison  were  able  to 

keep   up  their  communications  with   the  interior. 

Even  Prince  Mentschikoff  was  at  last  compelled  to 

send  reinforcements,  and  such  had  been  the  activity 

of  Todleben   that,  three  weeks   after  the   Alma, 

Sebastopol  was  tolerably  well  prepared  for  a  siege. 

Lord  Raglan  earnestly  desired  that  the  fleets  should 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR    359 

assist  the  besiegers.     But,  as  Kinglake  pithily  puts  1354. 
it,1  "  the  difficulty  of  founding  decisive  action  upon 
piebald  councils  of  war  is  even  more  fatal  to  naval 
enterprise  than   to  the  operations  of  land  forces." 
Admiral  Dundas,  though  he  had  not  much  belief  in 
the  feasibility  of  attacking  Sebastopol,  at  once  sent 
a   favourable  response  to  Lord   Raglan's  request. 
His   captains  were   all  for  action,  and  they  were 
supported  by  Sir  Edmund  Lyons,  the  second  in 
command.     A  plan  was  drawn  up   by  which  the 
allied  ships  would  keep  moving,  and  would  deliver 
their  fire  at  the  forts  in  succession.     But  at  the  last 
moment,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the 
17th,  the  French  Admiral  Hamelin,  acting  under 
orders  from  General  Canrobert,  insisted  upon  the 
adoption  of  a  wholly  new  scheme,   by  which  the 
ships  would  be  engaged  with  the  forts  at  preposter- 
ous  and    impossible    distances.      Dundas   weakly 
yielded,  and  the  naval  attack  was  spoiled.     Yet  it  The  failure 
would  not  be  correct  to  say  that  even  in  the  first  attack.1*1 
part  of  the  campaign  the  fleets  were  useless.     They 
had  protected  the  landing  of  the  troops,  they  had  services 
removed  the  wounded  after  the  Alma,  and  they  the  ffe'et. 
put  out  of  action  the  Russian  fleet  in  the  Black 
Sea.     For,  by  sinking  some  of  their  vessels  across 
the  mouth  of  the  harbour,  the  Russians  at  once 
secured  and  disabled  their  own  Navy.     By  the  time 
the  bombardment  opened,  Todleben  had  practically 
completed  his  work,  and  the  Western  Powers  had  LOSS  or  time 
lost  their  final  chance  of  taking  Sebastopol  by  sur-  Sue* 
prise.     Acting  under  the  advice  of  Sir  John  Bur- 
goyne,  but  also  in  accordance  with  his  own  opinion, 
Lord  Raglan  had  decided  that  the  cannonade  should  Decision  to 
be  opened  from  the  south,  which  it  was  rightly  the  south, 
supposed  that  the  enemy  did  not  expect.     They 
did  not  expect  to  be  besieged  at  all.     They  feared 
to  be  taken  by  storm,  and  great  was  their  delight 

1  Invaiion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  iii.  p.  276. 


360    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  when  the  sound  of  the  spade  convinced  them  that 
for  the  present  they  were  safe.     Nevertheless,  the 

Firstborn-  bombardment  which  opened  on  the  morning  of  the 
17th  of  October  was  an  extremely  formidable 
one ;  the  French  artillerymen  proved  too  much 
for  the  Russian,  and  the  death  of  Admiral  Korni- 
loff  discouraged  the  defenders.  Unluckily  a  shell 
from  a  Russian  battery  blew  up  a  French  magazine, 
and  the  effect  of  this  accident  was  disproportionate 
to  its  immediate  results.  The  French  discovered 

Discourage-  that  their  batteries  could  be  raked,  and   General 

ftench.  e  Canrobert,  falling  into  one  of  his  fits  of  despond- 
ency, sent  a  message  to  Lord  Raglan  through 
General  Rose  that  the  French  share  in  the  bom- 
bardment must  cease  for  the  day,  if  not  for  a  longer 
time.  This  was  at  half-past  ten  in  the  morning. 
The  English  batteries  continued  their  fire  until, 
of  the  two  great  Russian  fortresses,  the  Malakhoff 
had  been  silenced,  and  the  Redan  all  but  destroyed. 
That  was  the  moment  for  an  assault.  But  the 
French  were  not  in  a  position  to  co-operate,  and 

Loatoppor-  another  opportunity  was  lost.  As  Kinglake  epi- 
grammatically  says,1  "What  benumbed  the  Allies 
was  the  Alliance."  The  losses  of  the  besieged 
during  this  bombardment  were  much  greater  than 
the  losses  of  the  besiegers,  and  the  waste  of  ammuni- 
tion in  Sebastopol  was  immense.  Yet,  inasmuch 
as  no  assault  followed,  the  energy  of  the  attacking 
forces  was  thrown  away.  It  is  said  that  General 
Canrobert  did  not  realise  the  consequences  of  post- 
poning the  assault.  General  Todleben  understood 
them  very  well. 

The  forces  defending  Balaklava  were  isolated 
from  the  main  body  of  the  allied  army.  Yet 
Balaklava  was  the  English  arsenal,  the  English 
storehouse,  and  the  English  port.  Prince  Men- 
tschikoff,  having  received  large  reinforcements, 

1  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  iii.  p.  477. 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR    361 

proceeded  to  attack  the  position  on  the  25th  of  1354. 
October.  The  garrison  was  under  the  command 
of  Sir  Colin  Campbell.  Canrobert's  Hill,  a  spur 
of  the  Causeway  Heights,  which  separate  the 
North  from  the  South  Valley,  formed  the  outer 
defence  of  Balaklava.  The  guns  on  Canrobert's 
Hill  and  the  Causeway  Heights  were  manned  by 
Turks.  The  Turks  being  outnumbered  failed  to  wt  of 
defend  their  redoubts,  which  were  captured  by  the 
Russians  after  hard  fighting,  and  the  enemy  then 
took  up  their  position  on  the  Causeway  Heights. 
The  stores  of  Balaklava  would  have  been  at  the 
mercy  of  the  enemy  but  for  the  93rd  Highlanders, 
who,  under  Sir  Colin  Campbell,  received  and  re- 
pelled the  attack  of  the  Russian  horse  with  striking 
coolness  and  presence  of  mind.  Sir  Colin  Camp- 
bell's Turkish  battalions  deserted  him,  and  rushed 
in  a  panic  to  the  sea.  With  a  few  hundred  High- 
landers, drawn  up  in  a  line  only  two  deep,  he 
told  his  men  that  there  was  no  retreat,  and  that 
they  must  die  where  they  stood.  "Ay,  ay,  Sir 
Colin,"  they  said,  "  we'll  do  that."  But  the 
advance  guard  of  the  Russians  was  driven  back 
by  the  steady  fire  of  this  dauntless  regiment,  and 
the  threatened  attack  came  to  nothing.  Mean- 
while the  main  body  of  Russian  cavalry  rode  up 
the  North  Valley.  The  nature  of  the  ground  con- 
cealed their  approach  from  the  Heavy  Brigade 
under  General  Scarlett,  who  had  been  sent  to  re- 
lieve the  Turks,  until  the  enemy  suddenly  appeared 
in  dense  masses  on  the  sky-line.  Scarlett's  force 
numbered  only  three  hundred,  and  their  com- 
mander had  never  been  in  action  before.  The 
Russians,  who  were  two  thousand  strong,  could 
easily  have  overwhelmed  him,  but  he  gave  them 
no  time.  He  charged  at  once,  while  they  hesi-  charge  of 
tated,  and  cut  his  way  through  the  enemy,  who, 
being  attacked  also  by  the  Royals  and  the  5th 


362   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  Dragoon  Guards,  broke,  and  galloped  up  the  hills 
from  which  they  had  come  down.  This  charge  up- 
hill over  difficult  ground  was  not  only  one  of  the 
most  gallant,  but  also  one  of  the  most  effective, 
exploits  in  the  military  history  of  England.  General 
Scarlett  showed  by  his  conduct  on  that  25th  of 
October,  the  anniversary  of  Agincourt,  that  he 
had  natural  qualities  which  made  up  for  the  want 
of  experience.  The  charge  was  completely  success- 
ful, and  some  advantage  might  have  been  derived 
from  it  if  the  Light  Brigade  had  now  attacked 
the  retreating  enemy.  But  Lord  Cardigan,  who 
was  in  command,  did  nothing,  and  refused  to  let 
anything  be  done.  To  all  solicitations  he  had  one 
answer,  and  one  answer  only.  He  had  been 
ordered  by  his  superior  officer,  Lord  Lucan,1  who 
commanded  the  whole  of  the  cavalry,  to  defend  a 
certain  position ;  he  was  occupying  that  position, 
cardigan,  and  he  must  not  stir.  There  is  an  almost  hopeless 
conflict  of  testimony  about  the  precise  order  which 
Lord  Lucan  actually  gave.  But  if  Lord  Cardigan, 
who  was  afraid  of  nothing  else,  had  not  been  afraid 
of  responsibility,  the  Russian  cavalry  would  have 
Lord  been  destroyed.  Lord  Raglan,  perceiving  that 
Sve  to  General  Scarlett's  magnificent  charge  had  reduced 
cfauTeway e  the  Russian  force  to  two  almost  isolated  columns, 
determined  at  once  to  recapture  the  Causeway 
Heights.  This  task  ought  to  have  been  performed 
by  the  First  Division  under  the  Duke  of  Cambridge 
and  the  Fourth  Division  under  Sir  George  Cathcart. 
But  Sir  George,  having  missed  his  way,  was  late, 
and  in  the  circumstances  Lord  Raglan  thought  that 
he  should  again  bring  his  cavalry  into  action.  He 
sent  therefore  to  Lord  Lucan  a  written  order  in 
ma  written  these  words  i  "  Cavalry  to  advance  and  take  ad- 
vantage of  any  opportunity  to  recover  the  heights. 

1  Lord  Lucan  and  Lord  Cardigan  were  brothers-in-law,  and  between 
them  there  was  a  family  feud  of  long  standing. 


They  will  be  supported  by  the  infantry,  which  have  1854. 
been  ordered  to  advance  on  two  fronts."  The 
meaning  of  these  words  is,  and  was,  perfectly  unmis- 
takable. The  cavalry  were  to  attack  with  the 
assurance  that  they  would  be  supported  by  infantry. 
Lord  Lucan  chose  to  invert  the  sense  of  his  instruc- 
tions, and  to  wait  for  the  infantry,  that  he  might 
support  them.  He  therefore  halted  for  about  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour.  This  was  precisely  what  Lord 
Raglan  wished  to  avoid,  the  delay  caused  by  the 
blunder  of  Sir  George  Cathcart  being  the  reason 
why  he  appealed  to  the  cavalry.  Meanwhile  it 
became  obvious  that  the  Russians  were  preparing 
to  carry  off  the  English  guns  from  the  Turkish 
redoubts,  and  Lord  Raglan,  justly  incensed  at  Lord 
Lucan's  flagrant  disobedience,  despatched  another 
order,  written  with  a  pencil  by  General  Airey,  his 
quartermaster,  in  these  terms  :  "  Lord  Raglan  ms  second 
wishes  the  cavalry  to  advance  rapidly  to  the  front,  through 

,     ,  J   .      .,  J .  .-,       General 

and  try  to  prevent  the  enemy  carrying  away  the 
guns.  Troop  of  horse -artillery  may  accompany. 
French  cavalry  is  on  your  left.  Immediate. 
(Signed)  R.  Airey."  This  order,  though  signed  by 
General  Airey,  and  brought  by  his  aide-de-camp, 
Captain  Nolan,  was,  of  course,  Lord  Raglan's. 
The  guns  were  of  course  the  English  guns  captured 
from  the  Turks,  and  then  crowning  the  Causeway 
Heights,  which  Lord  Lucan  ought  already  to  have 
attacked.  But  Lord  Lucan  disapproved  of  the 
order,  though  it  came  straight  from  his  Commander- 
in-Chief,  who  was  posted  where  he  could  see  the 
enemy  and  the  guns,  invisible  to  Lord  Lucan. 
This  Lieutenant- General  at  the  head  of  his  Divi- 
sion proceeded  to  argue  with  a  mere  captain  upon 
the  expediency  of  doing  as  he  was  told.  He 
"  urged  the  uselessness  of  such  an  attack  and  the 
danger  attending  it."  Captain  Nolan,  as  in  duty 
bound,  simply  replied,  "  Lord  Raglan's  orders  are 


364   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  that  the  cavalry  should  attack  immediately." 
"  Attack,  sir  ? "  said  Lord  Lucan,  "  attack  what  ? 
What  guns,  sir  ? "  1  Lord  Lucan's  own  despatch, 
written  two  days  after  the  battle,  shows  that  he 
knew  well  what  guns  were  meant.  By  a  strange 
and  sinister  fatality,  Captain  Nolan's  temper  at 
this  moment  gave  way.  He  was  an  enthusiastic 
believer  in  the  power  of  cavalry,  and  he  was  furious 
at  Lord  Lucan's  backwardness.  Instead  of  giving, 
as  he  should  have  given,  specific  information,  he 
threw  out  his  hand  dramatically,  and  exclaimed, 
"  There,  my  lord,  is  your  enemy ;  there  are  your 
guns ! "  Captain  Nolan's  conduct  was  undoubtedly 
disrespectful,  if  not  insubordinate,  and  Lord  Lucan 
would  have  been  at  least  technically  justified  in 
putting  him  under  arrest.  That  he  should  have 
honestly  misinterpreted  a  gesture  of  contempt  for 
a  topical  direction  is  almost  inconceivable,  especially 
as  neither  artillery  nor  Russians  could  be  seen  from 
the  spot  where  he  and  Nolan  were  standing.  In 
his  subsequent  defence,  however,  Lord  Lucan 
alleged  that  Nolan  pointed  "  towards  the  left-front 
corner  of  the  valley."  He  therefore  rode  alone  to 
Lord  Cardigan,  who  sat  mounted  in  front  of  the 
Light  Dragoons,  and  told  him  to  charge  down  the 
North  Valley. 

There  were  two  points  at  which  the  Russians 
might  have  been  attacked  by  cavalry  with  the  pro- 
bability, if  not  the  certainty,  of  success.  One  was 
General  Liprandi's  position  on  the  Causeway 
Heights,  where  were  the  guns  mentioned  hi  the 
order.  The  other  was  the  Russian  detachment 
opposite,  on  the  Fedioukine  Hills.  "  But,"  as 
Kinglake  says,2  "  between  the  two  ranges,  thus 
each  of  them  inviting  attack,  there  unhappily  lay  a 
smooth  valley,  which  offered  itself  to  those  horse- 

1  Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  iv.  p.  240. 
2  Ibid.  vol.  iv.  p.  235. 


Brigade. 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     365 

men  who  might  either  be  weary  of  life  or  com- 1354. 
pelled  by  a  sense  of  duty  to  go  down  and  commit 
self-destruction."      The  latter  was  the  motive  of 
Lord   Cardigan,   and   of  the   Light   Brigade,    the 
immortal  Six  Hundred.      Lord  Cardigan,   on  re- 
ceiving the  order  to  advance  by  word  of  mouth  from 
Lord  Lucan,   replied,   "  Certainly,   sir ;   but  allow  Lord 
me  to  point  out  to  you  that  the  Russians  have  a™1/?-10' 
battery  in  the  valley  in  our  front,  and  batteries  and 8tl 
riflemen  on  each  flank."    This  was  the  literal  truth, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  any  one  not 
temporarily  insane  can  have  given  such  a  command. 
Lord  Lucan  simply  remarked,  "  I  cannot  help  that ; 
it  is  Lord  Raglan's  positive  orders  that  the  Light 
Brigade  attacks  immediately."     Lord  Cardigan  then 
turned   round,  and  said,   "  The    Brigade  will    ad-  The  charge 
vance." l    Those  six  hundred  officers  and  men,  with  Light6 
Lord  Cardigan   at  their  head,   rode  between  two 
Russian   batteries    up   to   the  mouth    of  a   third. 
They  rode  to  almost  certain  death.2      There  was 
no  conceivable  object  in  the  order,  and  the  rawest 
recruit  must  have  felt  that  it  was  a  blunder.     Yet 
not  one  of  them  hesitated  for  an  instant.     They 
followed  their  chief,  who  escaped  without  a  serious 
wound,  and  they  actually  galloped  past  the  Russian 
guns  at  the  end  of  the  valley,  driving  the  Russian 
gunners    before    them.      After    the    charge    had 
begun,  Captain  Nolan  was  seen  riding  across  the 
Brigade,  gesticulating  violently,   and   pointing   to 
the  Causeway  Heights.     It  is  reasonably  supposed 
that  he  was  trying  to  save  the  Brigade  from  de- 
struction,   and    to   indicate   the   true   way.      But 
before    he   could   make    Lord    Cardigan    hear    or 

1  Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  iv.  p.  249. 

2  The  French  soldiers  of  Bosquet's  divisions  were  so  horrified  at 
the   spectacle  of  this  purposeless  sacrifice  that  they   shouted ,  as   if 
they  could  be  heard,  "  Stop,  stop,  it  is  mad  "  (Arretez-vous,  arretez- 
vous,  c'est  insense). — De  la  Gorce,  Histoire  du  Second  Empire,  vol.  L 
p.  294. 


366    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  understand,  he  was  struck  by  the  fragment  of  a 
Russian  shell,  and  fell  dead  from  his  horse.  That 
General  Liprandi  believed  the  attack  to  be  meant, 
as  meant  it  was,  for  the  Causeway  Heights,  is 
plain  from  the  fact  that  he  withdrew  some  of  his 
battalions,  and  abandoned  several  of  the  guns  taken 
from  the  Turks.  When  at  length  the  enemy  dis- 
covered the  truth,  they  imagined  that  these  desperate 
horsemen  must  be  drunk,  and  were  astonished  to  find 
from  the  few  prisoners  they  took  that  the  men  had 
not  even  breakfasted.  At  the  close  of  this  memor- 
able charge  the  strength  of  the  Light  Brigade  had 
been  reduced  from  six  hundred  to  two  hundred 
men.  Lord  Cardigan  himself,  having  performed 
a  feat  of  unsurpassed  daring,  conceived  that  his 
duty  had  been  discharged,  and  rode  slowly  back 
without  waiting  for  his  supports,  or  attempting  to 
rally  his  brigade.  He  was  first  in,  and  first  out. 
That  the  Light  Brigade  were  not  wiped  from  exist- 
ence is  due  to  General  Morris,  the  commander  of 
the  French  cavalry,  and  to  General  d'Allonville, 
who,  with  the  Chasseurs  (FAfrique,  drove  the  enemy 
from  the  Fedioukine  Hills.  This  was  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  movements  in  the  whole  war,  and 
the  timely  adroitness  which  planned  it  was  not 
less  conspicuous  than  the  intrepidity  with  which 
it  was  carried  out.  Lord  Lucan  gave  no  help. 
"  They  have  sacrificed,"  he  said,  "  the  Light 
Brigade ;  they  shall  not  the  Heavy,  if  I  can  help 
it."  The  unconsciousness  of  his  own  part  in  the 
sacrifice  was  almost  sublime.  General  Bosquet's 
epigrammatic  comment  upon  the  charge  of  the 
Light  Brigade  is  even  better  known  than  Tennyson's 
poem,  having  become  part  of  that  colloquialism 
which  is  cosmopolitan.  "  It  was  magnificent,"  said 
the  gallant  Frenchman,  "  but  it  was  not  war." 
Unlike  most  epigrams,  this  is  exhaustive.  A  few 
supplementary  words,  however,  remain  to  be  added. 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR    367 

When  Lord  Cardigan  approached  Lord  Raglan  to  1854, 
make  his  report  of  the  action,  Lord  Raglan  ad- 
dressed him  with  strong  and  natural  displeasure. 
"  What  did  you  mean,  sir,"  he  asked,  "  by  attacking 
a  battery  in  front,  contrary  to  all  the  usages  of 
warfare  and  the  customs  of  the  service  ? "  But 
Lord  Cardigan's  reply  was  conclusive.  "  My  lord, 
I  hope  you  will  not  blame  me,  for  I  received  the 
order  to  attack  from  my  superior  officer  in  front  of 
the  troops."  Lord  Raglan  accepted  this  excuse, 
and  said  afterwards  to  Lord  Lucan,  "  You  have 
lost  the  Light  Brigade." a  This  severe  sentence 
was  justified  by  the  facts,  and  subsequent  investi- 
gation has  confirmed  the  opinion  of  Lord  Raglan 
that  Lord  Lucan  was  responsible  for  the  sacrifice 
of  the  Six  Hundred.  For  his  share  in  the  cata- 
strophe, and  for  the  hostile  attitude  which  he  after- 
wards adopted  towards  Lord  Raglan,  Lord  Lucan 
was  recalled  by  the  Commander-in-Chief,  with  the 
Secretary  of  State's  approval.2  Lord  Cardigan  was 
allowed  to  return  home  on  account  of  his  health, 
and  became,  as  in  some  respects  he  well  deserved 
to  be,  a  popular  hero.  But  he  wasted  the  rest  of 
his  life  in  controversy,  and  even  litigation,  about 
his  conduct  of  the  battle.  Lord  Lucan  took  ad- 
vantage of  his  status  as  a  peer  to  assail  his  absent 
superior  in  the  House  of  Lords,  by  which  he  did 
no  good  to  himself  and  no  harm  to  Lord  Raglan. 

At  the  moment  the  charges  of  both  the  Heavy 
and  Light  Brigades  seemed  to  be  without  sub- 
stantial results.  After  the  latter  General  Liprandi 
reversed  the  retreat  he  had  begun,  and  reoccupied 

1  Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  iv.  p.  363. 

2  He  asked  to  be  brought  before  a  court-martial,  but  Lord  Hardinge 
refused  his  request.     It  appears  to  be  a  popular  error  that  an  officer 
recalled  by  superior  authority  for  misconduct  can  demand  a  public 
trial.     No  such  right  exists  either  under  the  Army  Act  or  under  the 
King's  Regulations.     The  only  appeal  is  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  and 
it  is  doubtful  whether  even  that  existed  in  1854. 


368    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  the  Causeway  Heights.  Lord  Raglan,  having  con- 
sulted General  Canrobert,  agreed  that  no  further 
attempt  to  dislodge  this  Russian  force  should  be 
Moral  effect  made.  The  moral  effect  of  these  exploits  was  un- 
charjes.  doubtedly  great.  In  the  language  of  the  cricket- 
field  they  "  established  a  funk,"  and  the  Russians 
came  to  regard  a  force  of  British  cavalry,  though  it 
were  only  a  small  one,  as  something  more  than 
human.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  neglect  of  the 
Allies  to  disturb  Liprandi  was  an  encouragement 
of  the  enemy,  and  the  consequent  abandonment 
of  the  Woronzow  Road,  by  which  supplies  could 
have  been  brought,  was  the  cause  of  intense 
suffering  to  the  British  Army  during  the  winter. 

The  battle  of  Balaklava  was  hailed  in  Sebastopol 
as  a  triumph,  and  the  Russian  army  was  continu- 
ously reinforced,  until  at  dawn  of  day  on  the  5th 
of  November  a  determined  attempt  was  made,  by 
Prince  MentschikofFs  directions,  to  drive  the  Allies 
from  the  trenches,  and  raise  the  siege  of  Sebas- 
topol. Two  of  the  Emperor's  sons,  the  Grand 
Dukes  Michael  and  Nicholas,  took  part  in  this 
engagement,  known  to  all  the  world  as  the  battle  of 
The  Inkerman.  Inkerman  has  been  called  the  soldiers' 
inkennan.  battle,  because  the  tactics  on  both  sides  were  com- 
pletely disarranged  by  events,  and  the  fortune  of 
the  day  was  determined  by  a  series  of  desperate, 
isolated  combats.  The  British  were  completely 
taken  by  surprise,  for  the  heavy  mist  in  the  dark- 
ness of  the  morning  shrouded  the  grey  coats  of 
the  Russians  from  view.  So  dark  it  was  that 
great  masses  of  the  enemy  crept  unnoticed  to  the 
outposts  of  the  Second  Division.  Almost  the 
whole  of  Lord  Raglan's  force  was  engaged  on  this 
momentous  morning.  The  Brigade  of  Guards, 
commanded  by  the  Duke  of  Cambridge,  took  a 
leading  part  in  the  affray,  and  the  Coldstreams  lost 
a  third  of  their  effective  strength.  The  Guards 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     369 

were  hard  pressed,  and  would  have  been  over- 1354. 
powered  but  for  the  prompt  aid  of  General  Bosquet, 
whose  timely  reinforcements  decided  the  day.  The 
victory  of  Inkerman,  gained,  like  Waterloo,  upon  ,  * 
a  Sunday,  was  a  desperate  struggle  for  ^bre^  hours,  JQMjJ^ 
much  of  it  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  in  which 
officers  and  men  of  all  ranks  alike  distinguished 
themselves.  If  the  battle  had  been  won  by  the 
Russians,  the  Allies  would  have  been  forced  to 
leave  the  Crimea,  and  the  siege  of  Sebastopol 
would  have  been  raised.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Russian  defeat  might  have  been  turned  into 
a  rout,  and  Sebastopol  might  possibly  have  fallen, 
if  the  retiring  forces  of  Prince  Gortschakoff  had 
been  pursued.  Lord  Raglan  desired  to  pursue 
them,  but  nothing  would  induce  General  Can- 
robert  to  join  in  the  enterprise,  and  it  was  there- 
fore abandoned.  Canrobert  was  utterly  unfit  for 
his  position,  as  St.  Arnaud  had  been  before  him. 
Though  personally  indifferent  to  danger,  he  had  no 
moral  courage.  He  lost  his  nerve  on  critical  occa- 
sions, and  would  not  sacrifice  his  men  even  for  the 
most  obvious  purposes  of  war.1  A  fiercer  fight  than 
Inkerman  has  seldom  been  fought.  The  number 
of  Russians  engaged  in  it  was  about  forty  thousand. 
Against  them  were  eight  thousand  British  troops 
and  six  thousand  French.  More  than  once  the 
British  had  to  retire  before  overwhelming  force. 
But  they  always  returned,  and  it  was  the  Minis' 
rifle  at  last,  after  many  charges  with  the  bayonet, 
which  made  the  Russians  finally  retreat.  It  was  a 

1  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  after  this  terrible  battle  the  Russians 
were  guilty  of  killing  wounded  soldiers  incapable  of  resistance. 
"Killing  the  wounded"  is  a  misleading,  or  at  least  an  incomplete, 
phrase.  A  wounded  man  may  properly  be  despatched  if  he  has  a 
revolver  and  is  about  to  use  it.  On  this  occasion  the  Russians  violated 
the  rules  of  civilised  warfare  by  slaughtering  men  who  were  not  merely 
wounded,  but  unarmed.  Many  of  them  expected  similar  treatment 
themselves,  and  were  surprised  to  be  spared.  They  were  an  only  half 
civilised  army. 

VOL.  I  2  B 


370   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  magnificent  victory,  and  there  are  few  of  which 
England  has  more  reason  to  be  proud.  It  was  won, 
however,  at  a  fearful  cost,  and  it  did  not  bring  the 
Allies  one  step  nearer  to  the  seizure  or  destruc- 
tion of  Sebastopol.  "  I  never  before,"  wrote  Lord 
Raglan,  "witnessed  such  a  spectacle  as  the  field 
presented;  but  upon  this  I  will  not  dwell."1  Among 
the  officers  killed  was  Lieutenant  -  General  Sir 
George  Cathcart,  in  command  of  the  Fourth 
Division,  who  had  come  straight  to  the  Crimea 
from  South  Africa  after  finishing  the  Kaffir  War. 
The  British  losses  at  Inkerman  were  2612,  of 
whom  145  were  officers.  The  French  were  1726. 

/feav,  About  -fiyp  thousand  Russians  were  put  out  of 
action.  No  Russian  guns  were  taken,  and  the 
work  of  the  besiegers  was  resumed  as  before. 
The  Allies  were  not  in  a  position  to  assault,  and 
the  Russians  were  in  no  humour  for  renewing 
the  offensive.  The  Queen  expressed  her  grateful 
sense  of  her  soldiers'  services  by  instituting  the 

The          Crimean  Medal  with  clasps  for  Alma  and  Inker- 

Mreaaian  man.  Lord  Raglan,  who  had  been  himself  in 
the  thick  of  the  battle  through  the  greater  part 
of  the  eight  hours  for  which  it  lasted,  was 
gazetted  a  Field-Marshal.  But  the  popular  hero 
of  Inkerman  was  Sir  Thomas  Troubridge,  who 
lost  both  his  feet,  and,  like  Widdrington,  fought 
upon  the  stumps. 

Nine    days    after    Inkerman    the    Allies    were 
visited  by  a  calamity  more  disastrous  in  its  conse- 

rhe  great  quences  than  many  a  military  defeat,  the  great 
hurricane  of  the  14th  of  November.  Before  that 
date  the  British  soldiers  in  the  Crimea  were 
constantly  supplied  with  abundant  food.  This  is 
distinctly  stated  by  the  special  correspondent  of 
the  Times,  Mr.  Russell,  afterwards  Sir  William 
Russell,  an  unsparing  and  invaluable  critic  of  the 

1  Lord  Raglan  to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  8th  November  1854. 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR    371 

War  Office  and  the  General  Staff.1  The  provisions  1354. 
were  brought  up  from  Balaklava.  But  they  were 
stored  in  transports,  and  these  transports  were 
anchored  outside  the  harbour.  At  daylight  on  the 
14th  the  storm  broke,  and  swept  away  the  tents  of 
the  Allies  as  if  they  had  been  so  many  heaps  of  dry 
leaves.  Torrents  of  rain  filled  the  trenches,  and 
turned  the  earth  into  mud.  The  rain  was  followed 
by  driving  snow.  But,  galling  as  was  the  dis- 
comfort caused  by  the  tempest  to  those  on  land, 
its  effects  at  sea  were  infinitely  worse.  Captain 
Cargill,  of  the  City  of  London,  saved  his  ship  by 
boldly  taking  her  out  to  sea.  Many  vessels  were 
dashed  to  pieces  against  the  cliffs  of  Balaklava,  and 
among  them  the  Prince,  the  largest  transport  then 
afloat.  A  hundred  and  fifty  men  went  down  with 
her,  but  they  were  by  no  means  all  who  perished 
in  consequence  of  her  loss.  For  her  cargo  was 
worth  half  a  million  sterling,  and  it  consisted  entirely 
of  supplies  for  the  troops.  Before  the  gale  subsided, 
stores  to  the  value  of  two  millions  had  been 
destroyed,  the  damage  being  pretty  equally  dis- 
tributed between  English  and  French.  The  Russians 
also  suffered,  and  suffered  severely.  But  the  hard- 
ships and  privations  endured  by  British  soldiers  in  sufferings 
the  Crimea  during  the  winter  of  1854  and  1855 
began  with  this  awful  storm.  The  cold,  though 
not  unusual  for  Russia,  was  bitterly  felt  by  English- 
men. The  tents  no  longer  kept  out  the  rain.  Tea, 
coffee,  and  sugar  frequently  failed.  Since  the  loss 
of  the  Woronzow  Road  there  was  only  a  cart 
track  from  Balaklava,  and  this  was  made  impass- 
able by  mud.  There  was  no  hay  for  the  horses. 
There  were  no  men  available  to  make  a  fresh 
road  for  the  purposes  of  the  commissariat,  and 
scarcity  was  foUowed  by  cholera.  The  military 
hospitals  were  overcrowded,  and  the  effective 

1  See  the  Collection  of  his  Letters  on  the  War,  p.  263. 


372    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  strength  of  Lord  Raglan's  army  did  not  in  the 
month  of  November  exceed  thirteen  thousand  men. 
The  siege  was  practically  suspended.  Green  coffee 
and  salt  pork  produced  their  natural  result  in  the 
shape  of  scurvy.  The  mismanagement  was  almost 
incredible.  Stacks  of  vegetables  decayed  on  the 
beach  of  Balaklava,  and  bales  of  clothing  were  left 
to  rot  undisturbed,  while  the  men  serving  the 
trenches  went  in  rags,  had  no  change  of  raiment, 
and  were  covered  with  vermin.  These  facts  were 
disclosed  by  the  Press,  and  especially  by  the  Times. 
There  was  no  regular  censorship  in  the  Crimea,  at 
least  so  far  as  the  English  newspapers  were  con- 
cerned, and  when  Mr.  Russell's  letters  appeared, 
the  indignation  of  the  public  was  extreme.  They 
could  follow  the  course  of  the  siege  from  week 
to  week,  and  week  by  week  their  anger  grew  in 
strength.  It  did  not  spare  Lord  Raglan.  But 
the  full  force  of  it  descended  upon  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle  and  Lord  Aberdeen. 
The  Lord  Raglan,  though  inactive,  stuck  to  his  post. 

The  other  General  Officers  were  not  all  available. 
Sir  George  Brown,  in  command  of  the  Light 
Division,  had  been  seriously  wounded  at  Inkerman, 
and  was  laid  up  on  board  the  Agamemnon.  The 
Duke  of  Cambridge,  to  whom  had  been  assigned 
the  Brigade  of  Guards,  was  on  the  Retribution.,  and 
unwell.  His  Royal  Highness  had  left  the  front 
immediately  after  Inkerman,  and  did  not  return. 
Sir  De  Lacy  Evans,  commander  of  the  Second 
Division,  was  on  his  way  home  invalided.  He 
received  the  thanks  of  Parliament,  and  resumed  his 
attendance  in  the  House  of  Commons  as  Member 
for  Westminster.  But  his  military  reputation  was 
somewhat  dimmed  by  the  discovery  that  he  had 
recommended  to  Sir  Edmund  Lyons  the  withdrawal 
of  the  troops  from  the  Crimea.  Only  the  Third 
Division,  Sir  Richard  England's,  retained  its  original 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR     373 

chief.     Lord  Cardigan  was  ill  on  his  yacht,  where  1354. 
he  had  slept  throughout  the  campaign  by  the  leave 
of  Lord  Raglan.     Nothing  could  be  worse  than  the 
prospects  of  the  Allies,  and  there  arose  a  cry  that 
efficiency  was  being  sacrificed  to  "  Peninsular  pre- 
judices."    Lord  Raglan,  though  an  excellent,  was  Lord 
an  old-fashioned  soldier,  and  not  accustomed  either  fetecS* 
to  authority  or  to  responsibility.     When  fighting 
had   once   begun,    he    inspired    confidence   by   his 
energy,    and  his  contempt   for   danger.      But   his 
intellect  was  not  fertile,  he  had  no  plans,  and  his 
deficiencies  were  not  supplied  by  General  Canrobert, 
a  much  younger  man,  yet  a  routineer. 

While  things  were  in  this  state,  the  Cabinet  was  Division  in 
on  the  point  of  disruption.  Lord  John  Russell, 
conceiving  that  he  was  not  treated  with  sufficient 
respect  by  the  Prime  Minister,  and  ardently  desiring 
to  be  Prime  Minister  himself,  began  once  more  to 
threaten  that  he  would  resign.  He  wished  also  to 
remove  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  from  the  War 
Office,  to  put  Lord  Palmerston  in  his  place,  and  to 
abolish  the  post  of  Secretary  at  War,  then  held  by 
Mr.  Sidney  Herbert.  Lord  Aberdeen,  however, 
was  on  this  occasion  firm.  He  would  not  sacrifice 
a  loyal  to  a  disloyal  colleague,  and  he  declined  to 
admit  that  the  Secretary  for  War  must  necessarily 
be  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Lord  Palmerston 
put  an  end  to  the  dispute  by  declaring  that  he 
saw  no  ground  for  superseding  the  Duke.  Lord 
Palmerston 's  ambition  was  not  indeed  satisfied  by 
the  Home  Office.  He  was  as  much  bent  on  the 
Premiership  as  Lord  John.  But  he  was  quite 
shrewd  enough  to  see  that  when  Parliament  met, 
the  Secretary  of  State  for  War  would  be  the 
scapegoat,  and  that  was  a  position  he  did  not 
covet. 

Parliament  met  on  the  12th  of  December  in  a 
gloomy  and  dissatisfied  mood.     The  Queen's  Speech 


374    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  held  out  some  hopes  of  an  alliance  with  Austria. 
inter  But   Austria   had  not  the   slightest  intention   of 

n.  •/>  '-in  T  -n  • 

departing  from  her  attitude  of  neutrality.  1  rancis 
Joseph,  the  modern  Pharaoh,  was  like  a  reed,  upon 
which  if  a  man  lean,  it  shall  go  into  his  hand  and 
pierce  it.  Lord  Clarendon  could  not,  or  would  not, 
see  that  the  Central  Powers  were  determined  to 
suck  what  advantage  they  could  from  the  sacrifices 
of  the  Western  without  making  any  sacrifice  them- 
selves. Lord  Derby  and  Mr.  Disraeli  were,  as 
they  had  a  right  to  be,  rather  critical  than  suggestive. 
They  dwelt  upon  the  tardiness  of  the  military 
preparations,  and  upon  the  failure  of  the  Baltic 
fleet.  This  country  has  never  been  prepared  for 
war.  The  insurance,  as  Sir  Robert  Peel  said,  would 
be  too  heavy.  The  real  charge  against  the  Govern- 
ment of  Lord  Aberdeen  is  not  that  they  were 
unprepared  for  war,  but  that  after  war  had  been 
declared  they  neglected  to  provide  for  a  winter 
campaign.  They  assumed  that  Sebastopol  would 
be  taken  by  surprise,  and  the  failure  of  the 
assumption  was  very  near  leading  to  the  failure  of 
the  siege.  The  Duke  of  Newcastle  defended  him- 
self to  the  House  of  Lords  at  great  length  and  in 
much  detail.  But  he  made  no  impression  upon  the 
public,  which  had  already  condemned  him  unheard. 
He  justly  protested  against  the  cruel  charge  of 
indifference.  Two  of  his  sons  were  at  the  war,  and 
he  himself  had  not  taken  a  day's  holiday  since  the 
commencement  of  hostilities.  Men  in  high  places, 
however,  must  submit  to  be  judged  by  results. 
The  Duke  had  proved  before,  and  proved  afterwards, 
a  respectable  Minister  in  quiet  times.  He  was 
unequal  to  a  great  and  terrible  emergency,  where 
his  slow  mind  had  not  room  to  turn.  It  is  the 
more  creditable  in  Lord  Aberdeen  to  have  stood  by 
him,  because  he  had  never  been  of  Lord  Aberdeen's 
party  in  the  Cabinet.  He  was  now  able  to  promise 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR    375 

that  by  the  end  of  the  year,  or  within  three  weeks,  1354. 
there  would  be  fifty-three  thousand  British  soldiers 
in  the  Crimea.     That  did  not  satisfy  the  country. 
Nor  did  the  Foreign  Enlistment  Bill  introduced  by 


Lord  John  Russell  on  the  19th  of  December.  This  BULS  n 
singularly  ill-advised  measure  was  denounced  from 
both  sides  of  the  House.  Sir  Edward  Bulwer- 
Lytton,  a  master  of  Parliamentary  eloquence, 
declaimed  against  it,  and  Mr.  Cobden  bluntly  asked 
whether  British  honour  was  to  be  upheld  by  "  cut- 
throats taken  from  the  back  slums  of  Germany." 
The  one  plea  for  the  Bill  was  its  alleged  necessity, 
and  the  allegation  was  a  pitiful  acknowledgment  of 
weakness  to  make  in  the  face  of  the  world.  The 
third  reading  gave  Mr.  Bright  another  opportunity 
of  speaking  out  against  a  war  waged  "for  a 
hopeless  cause  and  a  worthless  ally"  by  "an  in- 
competent and  guilty  Ministry."  If  Mr.  Bright 
meant  that  the  military  situation  was  hopeless,  he 
was  of  course  wrong.  But  if  he  was  looking  to  the 
future,  he  was  right,  as  any  one  can  see  by  com- 
paring the  extent  of  the  Turkish  Empire  in  Europe 
half  a  century  ago  with  its  dimensions  now.  And 
as  for  the  "worthless  ally,"  by  which  he  meant 
Turkey,  not  France,  neither  his  eloquence  nor 
Cobden's  could  adequately  describe  the  atrocities 
which  the  Crimean  War  enabled  successive  Sultans 
to  perpetrate.  The  Bill  passed,  and  a  considerable 
number  of  Germans  were  enlisted  under  it.  Better 
and  more  loyal  soldiers  were  obtained  in  Canada, 
where  the  Hundredth,  sometimes  called  the  Canadian, 
Regiment  was  recruited.  In  this  respect  Canada 
then  stood  alone  among  British  colonies.  The 
bearing-rein  had  been  too  lately  taken  off,  and  the 
memories  of  transportation  were  too  recent,  for 
colonial  patriotism  to  be  effusive  in  its  character. 

Before  the  close  of  the  year  1854,  Vice-  Admiral 
D  undas  was  recalled,   and  was  succeeded  in   the 


376   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1854.  command  of  the  Black  Sea  fleet  by  Rear- Admiral 

Recall  of     §ir  Edmund  Lyons.      Admiral  Dundas  had  been 

Dund™1      severely  criticised  for  not  attacking  Sebastopol  by 

sea,  and  Sir  Edmund  Lyons  was  contrasted  with  him 

as  the  type  of  a  dashing  seaman.     Events  vindicated 

Dundas.     For  Sir  Edmund  followed  the  prudent 

example  of  his  predecessor.     Wooden  ships  could 

not   safely  attack    stone   walls,    and   the   Russian 

fleet  was  secure,  though  useless,  in  an  inaccessible 

harbour. 

Punch,  which  at  that  time  habitually  depicted 
Lord   Aberdeen   as   one   of  the   criminal   classes, 
represented  him  at  Christmas  1854  as  "  remanded 
till  next  sessions."     The  gibe,  though  brutal,  was 
prophetic.      Lord  John  Russell  was  on  the  look- 
out for  a  cause  of  resignation,  and  in  the  middle 
of  the  "  Crimean  winter  "  he  found  one.     He  could 
The  fan  of  hardly  have   made   a  worse   choice.      When   the 
mot ve  '  House  of  Commons  reassembled  after  the  Christmas 
1355.        holidays,  Mr.  Roebuck,  the  Radical  Member  for 
Roebuck's    Sheffield,  gave  notice  that  he  would  move  for  a 
notice.       Committee  of  Inquiry  into   the   conduct   of  the 
war.     Lord  John  at  once  wrote  to  Lord  Aberdeen, 
and  said  that,  as  he  could  not  oppose  the  motion, 
Resignation  he  must  resign  his  office.     It  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand  how  a  responsible  Minister  of  the  Crown, 
who  had  filled  the  highest  position  in  the  State, 
could  have  brought  himself  to  believe  that  such  a 
step  was  consistent  either  with  public  duty  or  with 
personal  honour.    Being  a  Member  of  the  Cabinet, 
he  was  as  fully  responsible  for  the  policy  of  the 
Government  as  any  one  of  his  colleagues.     Some 
of  his  suggestions,  such  as  the  creation  of  a  Secre- 
tary for  War,  had  been  adopted,  though  others,  such 
as  the  removal  of  a  Peelite  to  make  room  for  a 
Whig,  had  been  rejected.     In  order  that  he  might 
have  two  thousand  a  year  without  heavy  depart- 
mental work,   one    Minister    had    been   officially 


FIRST  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR    377 

degraded,  and  another  Minister  had  been  actually  ] 355. 
dismissed.  It  was  not  until  the  existence  of  the 
Government  had  been  imperilled  that  he  left  his 
colleagues  in  the  lurch,  and,  in  the  memorable 
words  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  "  to  escape  punishment, 
ran  away  from  duty." l  That  some  such  motion 
would  be  made  had  long  been  known,  and  no 
additional  importance  was  given  to  it  by  the 
personality  of  the  mover.  Mr.  Roebuck  was  a 
very  clever  man,  and  he  had  that  irresponsible 
recklessness  of  consequence  which  is  called  fear- 
lessness by  its  admirers.  But,  in  the  common 
phrase,  he  carried  no  weight.  Nobody  was  dis- 
posed to  believe  a  thing  merely  because  Mr. 
Roebuck  said  it.  The  defection  of  Lord  John, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  almost  inevitably  fatal  to 
the  Government  of  which  he  had  been  a  member 
for  more  than  two  years.  Well  might  Lord 
Palmerston  complain  of  such  behaviour  as  embar- 
rassing. It  was  crippling.  It  furnished  the  Oppo- 
sition with  unanswerable  arguments.  "  Here," 
they  could  say,  "is  the  second  man  in  your 
Cabinet,  in  his  own  estimation  the  first,  knowing 
all  that  you  know,  and  he  says  that  an  inquiry  by 
this  House  is  essential.  How,  then,  can  you  deny 
or  dispute  it?"  One  man,  who  always  had  the 
courage  of  his  opinions,  did  dispute  it,  and  did 
deny  it.  Mr.  Gladstone  boldly  said,  and  carried  Gladstone  • 
Lord  Palmerston  with  him  in  saying,  that  the sp 
course  proposed  was  unconstitutional,  because  it 
transferred  responsibility  from  the  advisers  of  the 
Crown  to  a  Parliamentary  Committee.  But  this 

1  Lord  John  offered  to  withdraw  his  resignation  if  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle  would  retire  in  favour  of  Lord  Palmerston.  It  had  been 
settled  before  Christmas  between  Lord  Aberdeen  and  the  Duke  that 
this  change  should  be  made.  But  no  one  else  was  aware  of  the 
arrangement,  and  Lord  Aberdeen,  though  he  had  assented  to  it, 
declined  to  carry  it  out  as  the  result  of  a  bargain  with  Lord  John. — 
Lord  Staumore's  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  p.  283. 


378    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  reasoning  is  surely  fallacious.  The  Committee 
was  not  to  carry  on  the  war.  It  was  to  ascertain 
how  the  war  had  been  carried  on.  If  it  involved 
a  want  of  confidence  in  Her  Majesty's  Ministers, 
that  was  because  they  chose  to  give  it  that  char- 
acter by  putting  up  Lord  Palmerston  and  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  oppose  it.  The  debate  was  enlivened 
by  the  unseemly  spectacle  of  Mr.  Bernal  Osborne, 
Secretary  of  the  Admiralty,  attacking  the  Wai- 
Office  from  the  Treasury  Bench.  A  better  figure 
was  made  by  his  predecessor,  Mr.  Augustus 
Stafford,1  who  had  redeemed  his  character  by  his 
services  to  the  wounded  in  the  Crimea,  and  could 
describe  at  first  hand  the  miseries  they  suffered. 
Mr.  Roebuck  himself  was  too  ill  to  say  more  than 
a  few  words.  He  might  have  moved  his  resolution 
by  taking  off  his  hat.  The  result  would  have 
been  the  same.  "  Dismiss  your  Government," 
said  Sir  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton,  "and  save  your 
army."  Rhetoric,  no  doubt,  but  rhetoric  which 
admirably  expressed  the  feeling  of  Sir  Edward's 
audience.  When  the  House  divided  on  the  29th 
of  January,  Mr.  Roebuck  informed  the  Speaker 
that  the  Ayes  to  the  right  were  305,  the  Noes  to 
the  left  148.  The  second  Government  of  All  the 
Talents  had  been  defeated  by  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  157.  The  victors  were  so  astonished 
that  they  forgot  to  cheer,  and,  despite  the  gravity 
of  the  occasion,  it  was  to  the  sound  of  derisive 
laughter  that  the  tellers  returned  to  their  seats. 

1  Formerly  Stafford  O'Brien.  A  Parliamentary  Committee  had 
severely  censured  his  administration  of  naval  patronage,  with  the 
Duke  of  Northumberland's  connivance,  in  the  Government  of  Lord 
Derby. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE    SECOND    PART    OF   THE    RUSSIAN    WAR 

THUS  fell  the  British  Aristides,  of  whose  incon- 1855. 
venient  rectitude  and  unseasonable  virtue  an  im-  *•«* 

Aberdeen  V 

patient  generation  was  weary.  No  one  who  knew  ™efeicltsand 
anything  of  Lord  Aberdeen  ever  attributed  to  him 
a  motive  that  was  not  the  highest.  He  was  a  good 
man,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term,  and,  like  most 
good  men,  he  was  a  bad  actor.  His  inflexible  justice 
stood  in  his  way.  He  did  not  believe  in  Russian 
perfidy,  in  Turkish  honour,  or  in  the  sincerity  of 
Louis  Napoleon,  and  he  could  not  conceal  his 
unbelief  merely  because  his  country  was  at  war. 
Therefore  he  incurred  the  reproach  of  treachery, 
though  a  more  disinterested  and  high-minded 
patriot  never  breathed.  To  the  end  of  his  life 
he  could  not  forgive  himself  his  share  in  the 
responsibility  for  the  defence  of  Turkey.  He  was 
his  own  severest  critic,  and  his  son  tells  a  touching- 
story  in  illustration  of  his  repentance.  A  munifi-  ms 
cent  builder  of  kirks,  manses,  and  schools,  he re 
declined,  without  giving  any  reason,  to  restore  his 
own  parish  church  of  Methlick.  After  his  death 
in  1860  there  was  found  among  his  papers,  written 
several  times,  the  verse  from  the  First  Book  of 
the  Chronicles  in  which  David  explains  to  Solomon 
that  he  cannot  himself  build  the  house  of  the  Lord, 
because  he  has  made  war  and  shed  blood.1  The 

1  Lord  Stanmore's  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  pp.  302,  303. 
379 


380   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  panegyric  of  Mr.  Gladstone  best  describes  the  real 
Gladstone's  character  of  Lord  Aberdeen.  "  It  is  no  reproach 
to  other  statesmen  of  this  or  of  other  periods  to  say 
that  scarcely  any  of  them  have  had  a  celebrity  so 
entirely  unaided  by  a  transitory  glare.  But  if  this 
be  so,  it  implies  that  while  they  for  the  most  part 
must  relatively  lose,  he  must  relatively  and  greatly 
gain.  If  they  have  had  stage  lights,  and  he  has 
had  none,  it  is  the  hour  when  those  lights  are 
extinguished  that  will  for  the  first  time  do  that 
justice  between  them  which  he  was  too  noble,  too 
far  aloft  in  the  tone  of  his  mind,  to  desire  to 
anticipate.  All  the  qualities  and  parts  in  which 
he  was  great  were  those  that  are  the  very  founda- 
tion-stones of  our  being ;  as  foundation-stones  they 
are  deep,  and  as  being  deep,  they  are  withdrawn 
from  view  ;  but  time  is  their  witness  and  their 
friend,  and  in  the  final  distribution  of  posthumous 
fame  Lord  Aberdeen  has  nothing  to  forfeit,  he  has 
only  to  receive."1  Gladstone's  words  are  a  monu- 
ment more  durable  than  brass,  and  their  beauty  is 
only  equalled  by  their  truth. 

The  gravity       The  defeat  and  resignation  of  Lord  Aberdeen's 
8'  Government    seriously    embarrassed    the    Queen. 
Her  own  sympathies  were  with  the  fallen  Minister, 
but  those  she  had,  of  course,  to  put  aside.     The 
question  was  for  whom   she   should   send.      The 
fatal  vote  had  been  instigated  by  an  independent 
Radical,  not  by  a  member  of  the  regular  Opposi- 
tion.    Her  Majesty  could  not  well  send  for  Mr. 
Roebuck.     She  examined  the  list  of  the  majority, 
found  that  most  of  them  were  supporters  of  Lord 
Lord         Derby,  and  sent  for  him.     By  the  unwritten  law 
wmmo'ns.    and  established  practice  of  the  Constitution  Lord 
ESS  re-       Derby  was  bound  to  take  office.     He  had  had  a 
7'  legitimate  opportunity  for  making  his  choice,  but 
that  moment  had  passed.     The  Opposition  in  the 

1  Lord  Stanmore's  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  p.  309. 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   381 

House  of  Commons,  and  Mr.  Disraeli  as  their  1355. 
leader,  might  have  refused  to  support  Mr.  Roebuck. 
They  might  have  said  that,  though  blunders  had 
been  committed,  and  a  case  for  inquiry  shown, 
they  were  not  prepared  to  turn  out  the  Govern- 
ment in  the  middle  of  a  great  war.  They  did  not 
adopt  that  course.  On  the  contrary,  they  deliber- 
ately, and  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  conse- 
quences, destroyed  the  Administration  of  Lord 
Aberdeen.  They  professed  to  be  enthusiastically 
in  favour  of  the  war,  and  they  were  bound  by 
patriotic  duty  to  carry  it  on  without  a  moment's 
delay.  But  they  had  the  misfortune  to  be  led  by 
a  man  whose  brilliant  gifts  and  conspicuous  accom- 
plishments were  marred  by  infirmity  of  purpose  and 
vacillation  of  mind.  Lord  Derby  did  not  at  once 
decline  the  task  entrusted  to  him.  He  entered 
into  negotiations  with  the  other  side.  He  made 
overtures  to  Lord  Palmerston,  offering  also  seats 
in  the  Cabinet  to  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Sidney 
Herbert.  These  proposals  were  not  unnaturally 
declined,  and  thereupon  Lord  Derby  gave  up  the 
attempt.  The  speech  in  which  he  explained  to 
the  House  of  Lords  his  reasons  for  refusal  was  HIS  refusal. 
even  more  amazing  than  the  similar  statement  he  ^b.  5. 
had  made  in  1851.  The  gist  of  it  was  that  he 
could  not  form  a  respectable  Government  from 
the  ranks  of  his  own  followers.  Mr.  Disraeli,  he 
mentioned,  would  have  waived  his  own  claim,  and 
allowed  Lord  Palmerston  to  lead  the  House  of 
Commons.  Lord  Ellenborough  would  have  been 
Secretary  for  War,  and  Sir  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton 
would  have  been  a  member  of  the  Cabinet.  But 
these  two  additions  to  his  former  colleagues  were 
in  his  view  inadequate,  and  so  he  surrendered  his 
task.  The  effect  of  this  naked  candour  upon  Lord 
Derby's  own  party  was  disastrous.  In  1851  the 
men  distrusted  were  also  untried.  They  were 


382   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  tried  in  1852,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  their  chief, 
they  had  been  found  wanting.  It  is  true  that 
since  that  date  the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  then 
First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  Mr.  Stafford,  then 
Secretary  of  the  Admiralty,  and  Major  Beresford, 
then  Secretary  at  War,  had  been  severely  censured 
by  Committees  of  the  House  of  Commons.  But 
they  did  not  belong  to  the  class  of  necessary  men, 
if  such  a  class  exists.  "Lord  Derby's  refusal  to 
undertake  the  Government,"  says  Lord  Malmes- 
bury  in  his  diary  for  the  6th  of  February  1855, 
"  has  been  a  great  disappointment  and  great  offence 
to  his  party."  "Disraeli,"  he  adds  three  days 
later,  "  is  in  a  state  of  disgust  beyond  all  control ; 
he  told  me  he  had  spoken  his  mind  to  Lord  Derby, 
and  told  him  some  very  disagreeable  truths."  Lord 
Malmesbury  sets  it  down  to  the  gout,  which  was 
Chatham's  best  help  in  time  of  need.  On  the  next 
page,  however,1  he  puts  into  Lord  Derby's  mouth 
an  opinion  that  if  he  waited  until  Lord  John 
Russell  and  Lord  Palmerston  had  failed,  he  would 
be  "  a  most  powerful  Minister."  If  that  were  his 
calculation,  its  failure  was  glaring  indeed.  A 
powerful  Minister  Lord  Derby  never  became,  and 
never  deserved  to  become.  Such  an  exhibition 
of  pusillanimity  as  that  which  justly  excited  Mr. 
Disraeli's  contempt  is  happily  rare  in  the  politics 
of  England. 

john'i  After  going  through  the  usual  but  empty  form 
of  applying  to  Lord  Lansdowne,  the  Queen  sent  for 
Lord  John  Russell,  who  seriously  and  characteristi- 
cally thought  that  he  could  form  an  Administration. 
He  was  very  soon,  and  most  disagreeably,  unde- 
ceived. There  is  honour  among  politicians.  The 
standard  may  not  be  a  very  high  one,  but  it  must 
be  observed.  They  expect  each  other  to  play  the 
game.  Lord  John  had  been  much  disappointed  to 

1  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister ,  vol.  ii.  p.  8. 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR  383 

find  that  not  one  of  his  Whig  colleagues  joined  1855. 
him  in  deserting  Lord  Aberdeen.  Neither  would 
they  join  him  now.  Lord  Palmerston,  indeed, 
gave  a  sort  of  conditional  acceptance,  knowing 
very  well  that  nothing  could  come  of  it.  With 
that  solitary  exception,  if  exception  it  can  be  called, 
not  one  of  Lord  Aberdeen's  associates  would  have 
anything  to  do  with  the  man  who  had  supplanted 
him.  The  Duke  of  Argyll  declined  Lord  John's 
invitation  to  call.  Lord  Lansdowne  expressed 
polite  regret.  Sir  George  Grey,  a  model  of  pro- 
priety, accompanied  his  regret  with  disapproval. 
Lord  Clarendon  refused  to  give  any  answer  "  until 
he  had  consulted  the  Head  of  the  Government  of 
which  he  was  a  member."  Such  language  from  a 
typical  AVhig  must  have  opened  Lord  John's  eyes 
to  the  enormity  of  the  offence  he  had  committed. 
He  speedily  withdrew,  and  Palmerston,  "  the  man 
of  the  people,"  became  also  the  Minister  of  the  Sift 
Crown. 

Her  Majesty  would  have  been  more,  or  less,  than 
human  if  she  had  sent  without  reluctance  for  the 
man  whom  she  had  dismissed  from  the  Foreign 
Office  three  years  before.  But  she  was  a  thoroughly 
constitutional  monarch,  and  Palmerston  spared  much 
embarrassment  to  her,  as  well  as  to  others,  by  never 
showing  any  himself.  He  was  now  in  his  seventy- 
first  year,  and,  except  by  the  rule  of  the  almanac,  as 
young  as  ever.  To  indomitable  energy  he  added  a 
robust  conviction  that  the  war  was  righteous,  and  an 
imperturbable  assurance  that  it  would  be  brought  to 
a  successful  issue  by  the  Allies.  The  perjured  Presi- 
dent of  a  throttled  Republic,  whom  he  had  been 
the  first  to  congratulate  on  the  success  of  his  crimes, 
was  now  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  united  by 
treaty  with  the  Queen  of  England.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston might  well  triumph,  but  he  knew  how  to 
triumph  with  decency.  He  had  not  many  places 


384   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  to  fill.     The  Duke  of  Newcastle,  making  a  virtue 
Retirement  of  necessity,   retired  with  his  chief,  and  used  his 

of  the  ,    .  J '.    .          ,  „    .  _  i.i 

Duke  of      leisure   to  visit  the  Crimea,   from  which   he  sent 

Newcastle.  .  ,..  /»     i« 

home  the  gloomiest  predictions  of  disaster.  I  he 
Secretaryship  of  State  for  War  was  at  that 
moment  the  most  conspicuous  post  in  the  British 
Empire,  and  the  best  man  available  should  have 
HIS  been  selected  to  fill  it.  Palmerston  chose  Lord 
Panmure,  a  Whig  placeman  of  the  second  or  third 
rate,  swathed  in  red  tape,  and  wedded  to  routine. 
The  Prime  Minister's  own  position  at  the  Home 
Office  was  taken  by  Sir  George  Grey.  Mr.  Herbert 
became  Secretary  for  the  Colonies,  and  the  office  of 
Secretary  at  War  was  abolished.  The  Peelite 
members  of  the  old  Cabinet,  from  loyalty  to  their 
leader,  were  at  first  inclined  to  hold  aloof.  But  at 
the  urgent  request  of  Lord  Aberdeen  himself  they 
consented  to  remain.  It  is  curious  that  Lord 
Aberdeen,  who  had  been  for  the  first  hah4'  of  his 
life  a  staunch  Tory,  was  in  his  old  age  so  anxious 
for  the  future  of  the  Liberal  party  that  he  urged 
Mr.  Gladstone  not  to  identify  himself  with  Conser- 
vative principles.  Although  a  Liberal  Govern- 
ment, in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term,  can  hardly 
be  said  to  have  existed  before  1859,  it  was  in  1855 
that  the  term  first  began  to  be  habitually  employed. 
Lord  Palmerston  himself  had  no  dislike  to  it, 
especially  as  it  was  connected  with  the  liberation  of 
Italy,  which  he  desired  with  an  ardour  that  may 
almost  be  called  sentimental. 

2»  Italy  might  seem  to  have  little  concern  with  the 

of  itaiy  to    Crimean  War.     But  at  the  end  of  January  1855, 

the  Allies.  ,  ,  ....,          •    •       •        T-I        i          i 

when  the  ministerial  crisis  in  England  was  at  its 
height,  the  King  of  Sardinia  joined  the  Alliance,  and 
agreed  to  furnish  fifteen  thousand  men,  commanded 
by  a  distinguished  officer,  General  La  Marmora,  in 
consideration  of  a  British  loan  for  one  million  ster- 
ling. Nothing  could  have  been  more  welcome  to 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   385 

England  and  France,  who  were  sorely  pressed  foris55. 
men,  than  this  little  force  of  hardy  mountaineers 
from  Piedmont.  But  no  such  project  would  have 
occurred  to  the  simple  soul  of  the  gallant  King 
Victor  Emmanuel.  It  was  the  master-stroke  of  a 
master  mind,  to  whose  matchless  dexterity,  sleep- 
less vigilance,  and  long-sighted  wisdom  Italy  owes 
her  rescue  from  the  servitude  of  ages.  The  morality 
of  the  Sardinian  expedition  may  be  doubted,  for 
Italy  had  no  quarrel  with  Russia.  But  Count 
Cavour's  love  of  his  country  was  a  consuming 
passion.  Where  she  was  concerned  he  had  no 
other  morals  and  no  other  faith.  He  saw  his 
opportunity  and  he  seized  it.  Three  English 
statesmen — Lord  Palmerston,  Lord  John  Russell, 
and  Mr.  Gladstone — were  in  sympathy  with  the 
movement  for  Italian  unity.  Cavour  perceived 
that  Austria,  his  most  deadly  enemy,  had  offended 
the  Western  Powers  by  standing  aloof  from  the 
war.  He  calculated  that  if  Italy,  or  Piedmont  as 
representing  Italy,  stepped  in  where  Austria  feared 
to  tread,  her  apparent  folly  would  be  the  truest 
wisdom  in  the  long  run. 

The  war,  however,  was  very  nearly  brought  to 
an  end  before  General  La  Marmora's  regiments 
could  be  actively  engaged.  Lord  Palmerston  had 
come  in  to  conquer  Russia.  He  began  by  nego- 
tiating with  her.  The  opportunity  was  not  far  to 
seek.  For  the  sake  of  conciliating  Austria,  whose 
active  intervention  would  have  been  disastrous  to 
the  Russian  cause,  Nicholas  had  always  kept  up 
an  appearance  of  willingness  to  negotiate,  which 
took  definite  shape  during  the  month  of  November. 
In  the  last  days  of  1854,  when  the  fortunes 
of  the  Allies  were  at  their  very  lowest  ebb,  the 
representatives  of  the  four  Powers  met  Prince 
Alexander  Gortschakoff  at  Vienna,  and  drew  up  The  Vienna 
Four  Points  upon  which  agreement  might  lead  to 

VOL.  i  2  c 


Conference. 


386   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  peace.     Lord  John  Russell  had   refused  to  take 
°ffice  under  Lord  Palmerston ;  but  he  accepted  a 

Feb.  12.'  special  mission  to  act  as  British  Plenipotentiary  at 
the  Conference  of  Vienna  with  the  regular  Ambas- 
sador, Lord  Westmorland. 

The  Four  The    first    point    was    the    transference    from 

Russia  to  Europe  of  the  Protectorate  over  Mol- 
davia, Wallachia,  and  Servia.  The  second  was  the 
free  navigation  of  the  Danube.  The  third  was  the 
termination  of  the  Russian  preponderance  in  the 
Black  Sea.  The  fourth  was  the  establishment  of  a 
European  Protectorate  over  the  Christian  population 
of  Turkey,  and  was,  of  course,  entirely  inconsistent 
with  the  independence  of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
But  in  this  war  for  Turkey,  Turkey  was  never  con- 
sulted. The  first,  second,  and  fourth  of  these  points 
gave  no  trouble.  Bitter  controversy,  on  the  other 
hand,  raged  over  the  third,  which  dealt  with  the 
distribution  of  naval  power. 

Lord  Palmerston  was  in  many  respects  a  bold, 
and  in  some  respects  a  reckless,  Minister.  But 
there  was  one  thing  of  which  he  was  afraid,  and 
that  was  the  House  of  Commons.  On  the  16th  of 
February  he  told  the  House  distinctly  that  he  could 
not  assent  to  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Roebuck's 

The          Committee.     This  decision  was  in  strict  accord  with 

committee,  the  arguments  he  had  himself  used  in  debate,  which 
had  also  been  used  by  Mr.  Gladstone.  Quoting 
Richard  the  Second's  speech  to  the  men  of  Kent,  "  I 
will  be  your  leader,"  he  added  that  the  Government 
would  themselves  inquire,  and  that  Royal  Commis- 
sioners would  forthwith  visit  the  Crimea  to  examine 
the  state  of  the  hospitals,  the  barracks,  and  the 
ships.  Mr.  Disraeli  insisted  that  the  House  should 
adhere  to  its  resolution.  He  had  certainly  a  very 
strong  case,  and  it  became  evident  that  the  House 
was  with  him.  But  at  this  time  Palmerston  held  the 
House  of  Commons  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand.  He 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   387 

was  the  only  possible  Minister.  All  other  combina-  isss. 
tions  had  failed,  and  to  withhold  from  him  the  neces- 
sary support  for  carrying  on  the  Government  would 
have  amounted  to  a  refusal  of  supplies  in  the  middle 
of  a  war.  Lord  Palmerston,  nevertheless,  gave  way, 
and  assented  to  the  appointment  of  the  Committee. 
Thereupon  Sir  James  Graham,  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  Resignation 
Mr.  Herbert  resigned.  Their  resignation  was  the  Peeiites. 
subject  of  much  criticism,  just  and  unjust.  To  say, 
as  Lord  Malmesbury  says,  that  their  conduct  was  a 
thousand  times  worse  than  Lord  John's  is  absurd. 
They  agreed  with  Lord  Palmerston  in  regarding  the 
Committee  as  unconstitutional,  and  they  accepted 
office  on  the  understanding  that  it  would  not  be 
appointed.  They  may  have  been  wrong.  But  if 
so,  Palmerston  was  wrong  too,  and  it  was  he  who 
changed  his  mind,  not  they.  Yet  it  may  well  be 
doubted  whether  they  would  not  have  acted  a  more 
patriotic  part  if  they  had  declined,  even  at  the  cost 
of  their  own  consistency,  to  risk  the  disruption  of 
the  Cabinet  at  so  supremely  critical  a  moment. 
How  keenly  Lord  Palmerston  felt  their  loss  may 
be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  he  wrote  to  Lord 
John  Russell,  then  at  Paris,  on  his  way  to  Vienna, 
and  offered  him  the  Colonial  Secretaryship  without 
suggesting  his  return.  Lord  John's  prompt  accept-  Lord  John-. 

/»  .1  /»»  T  T  •  -r-1          i       acceptance 

ance  or  the  oner  caused  general  surprise,  lor  he  of  office. 
thus  became  a  subordinate  member  of  Lord  Pal- 
merston's  Government  without  even  leading  the 
House  of  Commons.  His  absence  from  England 
was  not  so  serious  a  drawback  as  it  seemed,  because 
any  Secretary  of  State  can  constitutionally  perform 
the  functions  of  any  other.  Sir  George  Grey,  the 
Home  Secretary,  at  first  took  charge  of  Colonial 
affairs.  But  Lord  Palmerston  was  at  that  time  so 
fuh1  of  zeal  that  he  could  not  see  a  vacant  depart- 
ment without  wishing  to  have  the  control  of  it. 
Under  pretence  of  concern  for  the  health  of  Sir 


388   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  George,  a  much  younger  man  than  himself,  he  soon 
added  Lord  John's  work  to  his  own,  even  though, 
not  being  a  Secretary  of  State,  he  could  not  for- 
mally sign  despatches.  Mr.  Gladstone  was  suc- 
ceeded as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  by  Sir 
George  Cornewall  Lewis,  the  most  learned  and 
accomplished  of  public  men,  who  may  be  said  to 
have  known  everything  except  finance.  Sir  Charles 
Wood  became  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  in 
place  of  Sir  James  Graham ;  and  Mr.  Vernon 
Smith,  Sydney  Smith's  nephew,  afterwards  Lord 
Lyveden,  was  made  President  of  the  Board  of 
Control.  Even  the  Peelites  who  were  not  in  the 
Cabinet  accompanied  their  friends  into  retirement. 
Mr.  Cardwell  gave  up  the  Board  of  Trade,  and 
Lord  St.  Germans  the  Lord -Lieutenancy  of  Ire- 
land. Every  member  of  the  Government  except 
Sir  William  Molesworth  was  now  a  Whig.  But 
by  tacit  consent  that  insular  term  was  dropped  for 
the  name  the  European  name  of  Liberal,  which  played  so 
vital  a  part  in  the  subsequent  history  of  England. 
The  statements  of  the  seceding  Ministers  in  the 
House  of  Commons  on  the  23rd  of  February  1855 
led  to  a  debate  famous  in  political  annals  for  the 
most  eloquent  of  all  the  eloquent  speeches  delivered 
Bright's  by  John  Bright.  It  was  not  an  argument,  but  a 
pe^e.  °  direct  and  a  most  moving  appeal  to  the  hearts  and 
consciences  of  the  English  people.  He  referred  to 
victims  of  the  war,  gallant  soldiers  who  had  sat  in 
the  House ;  and  in  a  passage  of  solemn,  pathetic 
beauty  he  exclaimed,  "  The  angel  of  death  is  abroad 
in  the  land,  you  may  almost  hear  the  beating  of 
his  wings ! "  It  was  magnificent,  but  it  was  not 
politics,  for  it  might  have  been  delivered  at  almost 
any  stage  of  almost  any  campaign. 

The  reconstruction  of  the  Government  was 
almost  immediately  followed  by  the  appointment 
of  Mr.  Roebuck's  Committee.  Mr.  Roebuck  him- 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   389 

self  was  Chairman,  and  no  Minister  was  included  1865. 
in  it.  Lord  Aberdeen  and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
were  heard  as  witnesses.  A  grotesque  proposal Committte- 
made  by  the  Chairman  that  the  Committee  should 
be  secret  was  contemptuously  rejected  by  the  House, 
and  the  evidence  was  published  from  day  to  day 
till  the  15th  of  May,  when  the  inquiry  was  closed. 
The  arrangements  for  the  comfort  of  the  wounded 
were  shown  to  have  been  lamentably  deficient. 
"  There  is  no  matter  whatever,"  says  Sir  John  Bur- 
goyne,  who  was  on  the  spot,  "  in  which  the  French 
are  so  superior  to  us  as  in  their  hospitals.  They 
spare  no  pains  and  no  expense  to  give  the  sick  the 
best  of  houses,  excellent  beds,  ventilation  and 
extreme  cleanliness,  and  every  attendance,  care,  and 
comfort  possible." l  The  scandals  of  the  Crimean 
winter  are  known  to  all  the  world.  It  is  not  per- 
haps equally  notorious  that  when  Lord  Palmerston 
became  Head  of  the  Government,  he  at  once  set  activity. 
himself  to  the  task  of  applying  adequate  remedies, 
and  that  his  success  was  complete.  Upon  this 
point  there  can  be  no  better  authority  than  a  culti- 
vated and  enlightened  Frenchman  who  has  not 
much  affection  for  this  country.  "At  the  end  of 
a  few  months,"  says  M.  Pierre  de  la  Gorce,  "  the 
English  army  in  the  Crimea  astonished  men  by  the 
abundance  of  its  wealth  as  much  as  it  had  formerly 
amazed  them  by  its  poverty.  It  had  everything 
that  money  and  industry  could  give — fine  men,  fine 
horses,  which  actually  excited  envy  ;  fine  waggons, 
fine  materials,  comfortable  barracks,  ambulances 
which  were  almost  luxurious,  and  above  all,  victuals 
in  profusion.  It  was,  in  short,  so  well  organised  for 
the  struggle  that  later,  when  peace  came,  there  were 
some  feelings  of  regret."  Here  M.  de  la  Gorce 
may  be  suspected  of  irony.  "  One  might  have 
said,"  he  adds,  "  that  it  was  a  sacrifice  to  leave 

1  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Sir  John  Burgoyne,  vol.  ii.  p.  229. 


390   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  unused  the  immense  apparatus  which  had  just  been 
sfrjohn'  w*tn  difficulty  completed." l  Sir  John  Burgoyne, 
Burgoyne.  accused  of  Peninsular  prejudice,  was  recalled  by 
Lord  Panmure.  Sir  John  was  past  seventy,  and  he 
had  given  the  questionable  advice  to  attack  Sebas- 
topol  from  the  south.  But  he  had  been  indefati- 
gable, despite  his  years,  and  his  successor,  Sir  Harry 
Jones,  did  not  improve  upon  his  methods.  In 
France,  as  well  as  in  England,  there  was  much  im- 
patience with  the  slow  progress  of  the  siege,  and 
General  Bizot,  the  chief  of  the  French  engineers,  as 
Sir  John  Burgoyne  was  of  the  English,  would  have 
been  superseded  by  General  Niel  if  he  had  not  been 
removed  by  a  Russian  bullet.  General  Niel  had 
secret  instructions  from  the  Emperor,  of  which 
Lord  Raglan  knew  nothing,  to  delay  the  operations 
until  His  Majesty  himself  came  upon  the  scene. 
This  base  treachery  was  not  known  until  the  fall 
of  the  Empire  revealed  the  secrets  of  the  French 
War  Office.2  To  relieve  Lord  Raglan,  General 
Simpson  was  sent  out  as  his  Chief  of  the  Staff. 
But  this  was  not  a  fortunate  appointment,  nor  was 
it  ever  explained.  A  far  more  important,  and 
The  germ  indeed  a  most  salutary,  step  was  the  Army  Service 
service.  Bill,  which  authorised  the  enlistment  of  soldiers  for 
three  years,  instead  of  for  ten.  Seldom  has  so  valu- 
able a  piece  of  army  reform  been  carried  out  in  the 
middle  of  a  great  campaign.  It  was  hardly  noticed 
at  the  time  as  more  than  a  measure  requisite  for  an 
emergency.  It  was  really  the  stepping-stone  to  the 
modern  system  of  reserves  liable  to  be  called  up 
when  wanted,  upon  which  all  our  military  arrange- 
ments now  depend. 

One  of  Lord  Palmerston's  first  performances  as 
Leader  of  the  House  was  a  graceful  tribute  to  that 
veteran  Radical,  Joseph  Hume,  a  more  vigilant 

1  ffistoire  du  Second  Empire,  voL  i.  p.  333. 
8  Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  vii.  p.  222. 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   391 

guardian  of  the  public  purse  than  many  Chancellors  1855. 
of  the  Exchequer.     But,  as  Walter  Bagehot  said,  Death  of 

11  i  T.«       i  Joseph 

no  one  is  really  sorry  when  a  political  economist Hurue- 
dies.     Hume  died  on  the  20th  of  February  1855. 
Within  a  fortnight  another  death  made  the  money- 
markets  of  Europe  go  up  by  leaps  and  bounds  in 
anticipation  of  peace.     Eupatoria,  at  the  northern 
extremity  of  Calamita  Bay,  had,  at  Lord  Raglan's 
suggestion,  been   occupied  by  Turks  under  their 
only  efficient  Commander,  Omar  Pasha.     On  the 
17th  of  February,  the  Russians  made  a  determined  TJ« 
attempt  to  drive  out  the  Turks  and  to  take  posses-  Eupatoru. 
sion  of  the  place.     They  were  repulsed  with  heavy 
loss.     The  news  of  this  defeat  found  the  Emperor 
Nicholas  in  a  low  state  of  health  and  a  depressed 
frame  of  mind.     Though  not  yet  sixty  years  of  age, 
he  had  persuaded  himself  that,  as  he  came  df  a  short- 
lived race,  he  was  near  his  end.     Fretting  under 
this  fresh  reverse,  he  disregarded  the  advice  of  his 
physicians,  exposed  himself  to  the  cold  at  a  mili- 
tary review,  caught  a  chill,  and  died  on  the  2nd  Death  of  the 
of  March.     When  he  said  that  his  best  Generals  Nicholas. 
were  General  January  and  General  February,  he 
little  thought  that  he  would  himself  succumb  to  the 
inclement  weather  of  his  own  country.1     He  was  an 
Autocrat  of  the  Autocrats,  and  there  was  an  almost 
universal  belief  that  his  more  liberal  successor,  the 
second  Alexander,  would  be  less  unwilling  to  accept  Accession  of 
a  reasonable  compromise.     Under  the  influence  of  the  second. 
this  hopeful  view  the  Plenipotentiaries  at  Vienna 
proceeded  on  the  15th  of  March  to  the  discussion 
of  the  Four  Points.     But  just  because  of  his  repu- 
tation for  comparative  mildness  and  tolerance,  the 
Emperor  Alexander  was  bound  to  show  that  he 

1  If  any  one  wants  to  see  the  effect  of  war  upon  the  minds  not  of 
soldiers  in  the  field,  but  of  civilians  at  home,  let  him  turn  to  John 
Leech's  celebrated  cartoon  "  General  February  turns  Traitor,"  in 
Punch  for  the  10th  of  March  1856 — brilliant  in  conception,  admirable 
in  execution,  savage  in  sentiment,  and  odious  in  result. 


1855.  cared  no  less  than  his  father  for  the  honour  of 
Russia.  On  the  Third  Point,  the  proposed  limita- 
tion of  Russian  ships  in  the  Black  Sea,  Prince 
Gortschakoff1  absolutely  declined  to  give  way,  and 
on  the  23rd  of  April  Lord  Palmerston  announced, 
rather  prematurely,  that  the  Conference  was  at  an 

conference,  end.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  continued  to  sit  till  the 
4th  of  June.  But  Lord  Palmerston  did  not  desire 
its  success.  He  thought  that  Russia  had  not  yet 
been  sufficiently  humiliated,  and  he  was  determined 
to  crush  her.  She  was  not  crushed  yet.  The  last 
serious  fighting,  on  the  24th  of  February,  had  re- 
sulted in  a  complete  failure  of  the  Zouaves  to  drive 
the  Russians  from  their  advanced  trenches  in  front  of 
the  Malakoff,  which  was  the  real  key  of  Sebastopol. 
While  the  Conference  of  the  four  Powers  with 
Russia  was  still  sitting  at  Vienna,  the  Emperor  and 

The  French  Empress  of  the  French  paid  a  visit  to  the  Queen 

toVEngilnd.  and  Prince  Albert  at  Windsor.  They  arrived  in 
London  on  the  16th  of  April,  and  were  greeted  with 
much  popular  enthusiasm.  This  was  not  strange. 
For  the  Empress  was  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
women  in  Europe,  and  the  Emperor  was  at  war 
with  the  Queen's  enemies.  The  impression  made 
by  this  unscrupulous  adventurer  upon  the  Queen 
was  more  surprising.  She  was  perfectly  delighted 
with  him,  and  perhaps  he  never  gave  a  stronger 
proof  of  his  cleverness  than  in  the  effect  he  pro- 
duced upon  her.  The  Prince  had  already  visited 
him  at  Boulogne,  and  talked  with  him  freely  over 

The  French  the  affairs  of  Europe.  To  the  Queen  he  was  a 
stranger.  But  he  did  his  best  to  captivate  her, 
and  he  succeeded.  His  method  was  a  mix- 
ture of  judicious  flattery  and  apparent  candour. 
He  showed  a  minute  acquaintance  with  all  the 
events  in  Her  Majesty's  life,  and  even  with  the 

1  Prince  Alexander  Gortschakoff,  the  diplomatist,  not  Prince  Michael, 
the  soldier. 


dresses  she  had  worn  on  particular  occasions.  He  1855. 
endeavoured  to  excuse  his  confiscation  of  Orleanist 
property,  which,  however  difficult  to  justify,  was 
to  most  minds  innocence  itself  compared  with  the 
crime  of  December.  But  he  knew  very  well  to 
whom  he  was  speaking.  The  family  of  Louis  Philippe 
were  friends  of  the  Queen,  and  monarchs,  even  con- 
stitutional monarchs,  seldom  feel  deeply  shocked  by 
the  destruction  of  Republics.  That  he  should  have 
overcome  Her  Majesty's  prejudice  against  the 
despoiler  of  Royalty  is  a  remarkable  proof  of  his 
personal  influence.  When  he  was  invested  with  the 
Garter,  the  Emperor,  says  Greville,  addressed  theiouis 
Queen  in  a  short  speech,  which  that  prince  of  politi-  kaa  " 
cal  diarists  thus  summarises.  "  I  have  sworn  to  be 
faithful  to  your  Majesty,  and  to  serve  you  to  the 
best  of  my  ability,  and  my  whole  future  life  shall 
be  spent  in  proving  the  sincerity  with  which  I  have 
thus  sworn,  and  my  resolution  to  devote  myself  to 
your  service."  He  assured  her  that  nothing  had  so 
much  affected  him  as  the  sight  of  Her  Majesty, 
then  a  girl  of  eighteen,  going  to  open  Parliament  in 
person  after  the  General  Election  of  1837.  He  was 
in  high  good-humour,  and  well  he  might  be.  In 
1837,  not  twenty  years  before,  he  was  an  obscure 
refugee,  with  little  money  and  no  prospects.  Now 
he  was  the  supreme  ruler  of  France,  the  liberties 
of  Frenchmen  lay  crushed  beneath  his  feet,  and 
he  was  associating  on  equal  terms  as  an  honoured 
guest  with  the  Queen  of  England,  the  lineal 
descendant  of  Plantagenet  Kings.  His  head  was 
turned,  and  he  conceived  a  plan  which  fairly  horri- 
fied not  merely  his  own  advisers,  but  the  Ministers 
of  the  Queen.  He  announced  that  he  would  go  |he 

1  /»  -I        /~«    •  t  f     '   t  •  -i    Emperor's 

himself  to  the  Crimea,  and  put  the  finishing  touch  ESK*6! 

i          •  />r-«i  i         •»»         i     i    TT    -TI  i       visit  to  the 

to  the  siege  of  Sebastopol.     Marshal  Vaillant,  the  c" 
French   Minister   of  War,   was  in    despair,    Lord 
Clarendon  was  bewildered,  and  yet  there  seemed 


394   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  nothing  to  be  done.     For  the  Emperor  was  his  own 

master,  and  his  Ministers  were  simply  his  clerks. 

They  could  only  work  upon  his  jealousy,  and  this 

at  last  they  successfully  did.     He   had  then   no 

HU  design  heir,  except  his  cousin  Prince  Napoleon,  whom  he 

frustrated.  * 

suspected  and  disliked.  It  was  pointed  out  to 
him  that  Prince  Napoleon  was  the  only  possible 
Regent,  and  the  Prince  was  persuaded  to  insist 
that  he  should  have  the  same  despotic  powers  as 
the  Emperor.  To  that  the  Emperor  would  not 
consent,  and  by  this  dexterous  management,  to 
which  the  fear  of  a  revolution  at  Paris  may 
have  contributed,  a  British  General  was  preserved 
against  the  indignity  of  taking  orders  from  a 
foreign  sovereign — 

Who  never  set  a  squadron  in  the  field, 
Nor  the  division  of  a  battle  knew 
More  than  a  spinster. 

While  the  French  Emperor  was  discussing  war 
and  diplomacy  with  the  Queen,  Prince  Albert, 
Lord  Palmerston,  and  Lord  Clarendon,  the  new 
coraewaii  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  introduced  his  first 
Budget.  If  we  are  to  believe  Greville,  with  whom 
he  was  on  friendly  terms,  Sir  George  Cornewall 
Lewis  disapproved  of  the  war,  and  believed  that  it 
ought  to  have  been  avoided.  But  when  he  entered 
the  Cabinet,  the  die  had  long  been  cast,  and  he 
thought  himself  justified  in  providing  for  the  in- 
evitable expenses  of  an  avoidable  campaign.  He 
had  to  meet  a  deficiency  of  twenty-three  millions. 
To  have  raised  it  all  by  taxation  would  have  been 
heroic  finance,  and  the  House  of  Commons,  though 
it  contained  many  patriots,  contained  few  heroes. 
The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  adopting  a  middle 
course,  announced  on  the  20th  of  April  that  he  should 
ask  for  a  loan  of  sixteen  millions,  and  lay  the  rest 
upon  the  taxes.  The  income-tax  would  be  brought 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   395 

up  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  pence  in  the  pound.  1855. 
Three  shillings  a  hundredweight  would  be  added  to 
the  duty  on  sugar,  a  penny  a  pound  to  the  duty  on 
coffee,  threepence  a  pound  to  the  duty  on  tea,  and 
two  shillings  a  gallon  to  the  duty  on  spirits.  These 
were  fair  and  reasonable  proposals,  affecting  all  classes 
of  the  community,  who  were  alike  in  favour  of  the 
war.  They  met  with  no  serious  resistance  from 
any  quarter  of  the  House.  Ignorant  impatience 
of  taxation  has  never  been  a  characteristic  of  the 
English  people.  They  may  be  persuaded  that  a 
war  is  wrong,  but  they  will  not  turn  against  it 
merely  because  it  is  expensive.  Whatever  the 
Government  asked  in  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means,  or  in  Committee  of  Supply,  was  readily  and 
immediately  granted  by  the  representatives  of  the 
nation.  Mr.  Gladstone  did  not  object  to  the 
loan.  But  he  uttered  a  curious  and  cryptic  warn- 
ing,  which  came  strangely  from  a  Peelite  and  a 
free  trader.  If,  he  said,  the  taxes  were  to  be 
increased,  they  might  have  to  face  Protection. 
He  must  have  temporarily  forgotten  the  strongest 
of  all  arguments  against  a  Protective  tariff,  which 
is  that  it  brings  less  into  the  coffers  of  the  Treasury 
than  it  takes  from  the  pockets  of  the  taxpayers. 

The  Conference  at  Vienna  broke  down  on  the 
third  of  the  Four  Points.  Russia  conceded  without  The  Russian 
much  difficulty  the  joint  Protectorate  of  the  Princi-  tSfTMrd0 
palities,  the  collective  Protectorate  of  the  Christians, 
and  the  free  navigation  of  the  Danube.  She 
declined  either  the  neutrality  of  the  Black  Sea, 
which  would  have  closed  it  to  all  ships  of  war,  or 
the  limitation  of  the  number  which  she  might  keep 
there  herself.  Two  other  proposals,  which  came 
from  the  Austrian  Chancellor,  Count  Buol,  she 
was  willing  to  consider.  One  was  the  principle  of 
counterpoise,  which  would  have  given  the  Allies  the 
right  to  balance  the  number  of  Russian  ships  by  a 


396   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855  proportionate  contingent  of  their  own.  This  plan 
was  undoubtedly  a  bad  one,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  it  would  have  involved  the  constantly  recurring 
likelihood  of  another  European  war.  But  the 
second  alternative  put  forward  by  Austria  was  prac- 
tical, and  might  well  have  been  accepted.  This 
was  that  the  Russian  fleet  in  the  Black  Sea  should 
not  be  increased  beyond  the  strength  at  which  it 
then  stood.  Very  soon  after  his  arrival  at  Vienna 
i«rdjohn  Lord  John  Russell  began  to  complain  of  his  col- 
coiieagues.  leagues  at  home,  and  this  time  not  without  grounds. 
They  did  not  keep  him  properly  informed  of  their 
policy,  and  they  did  not  insist  upon  a  Turkish 
Plenipotentiary  being  sent  to  the  Conference.  Lord 
Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  according  to  Lord  Clarendon, 
"  never  would  help  anybody  else,  and  would  always 
thwart  any  business  which  was  not  carried  on  at 
Constantinople,  where  he  could  have  the  principal 
March 23.  finger  in  the  pie."  l  "The  Sublime  Porte,"  wrote 
Lord  John  in  an  official  despatch,  "  has  never,  as 
I  am  informed,  been  taught  to  look  on  these 
negotiations  as  serious."  Lord  John  asked  for 
Lord  Lord  Stratford's  recall.  But  Lord  Stratford  knew 
attitude. 8  that  Lord  Palmerston  was  behind  him,  and  that 
the  more  obstacles  he  put  in  the  way  of  the  Con- 
ference, the  better  the  Prime  Minister  would  be 
pleased.  Lord  Clarendon,  who  was  sincerely  de- 
sirous of  peace,  could  not  move  a  step  without 
France,  and  the  Emperor  was  still  bent  on  con- 
tinuing the  war.  His  determination  cost  him  the 
services  of  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  one  of  the  few 
honest  and  capable  men  who  were  willing  to  act 
under  him.  M.  Drouyn  resigned  early  in  May, 
to  be  succeeded  by  the  corrupt  and  incompetent 
Walewski.  The  Emperor's  reasons  were  from  his 
own  point  of  view  conclusive.  Marshal  Vaillant, 
his  Minister  of  War,  said  to  him  in  the  presence  of 

1  Walpole's  Life  of  Lord  John  Russell,  vol.  ii.  p.  251. 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   397 

the  British  Ambassador  at  Paris,  Lord  Cowley,  "  1 1855. 
am  not  a  politician,  but  I  know  the  feelings  of  the 
army.  I  am  sure  that  if,  after  having  spent  months 
in  the  siege  of  Sebastopol,  we  return  unsuccessful, 
the  army  will  not  be  satisfied." l  Louis  Napoleon 
without  the  army  would  have  been  in  1855  what 
he  was  in  1848,  and  like  Charles  the  Second  he 
was  resolved  not  to  set  out  again  on  his  travels. 
It  is  impossible  to  blame  him.  But  England  had 
been  brought  to  a  pretty  pass  when  she  must  needs 
shape  her  policy  to  keep  him  on  his  throne.  Lord 
John  Russell,  who,  like  Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  con- 
sidered the  Austrian  proposals  sufficient,  also 
tendered  his  resignation.  He  was,  however,  induced 
by  the  entreaties  of  Lord  Palmerston  to  withdraw 
it,  and  to  adopt  in  appearance  the  opinions  of  his 
colleagues.  This  unlucky  decision  involved  him  in 
a  dilemma  from  which  he  could  not,  and  did  not, 
escape  without  discredit. 

On  the  24th  of  May  Mr.  Disraeli  proposed  a  Disraelis 
vote  of  censure  on  the  Government  for  their  sup-  censure. 
posed  slackness  in  the  conduct  of  the  war,   and 
strongly  condemned  the  negotiations   at  Vienna. 
Mr.  Disraeli,  who  was  furious  at  Lord  Derby's  re- 
fusal to  take  office,  had  no  other  motive  than  the 
instinct  of  an  Opposition  to  oppose.     Mr.  Glad-  GJ*jg°ne'» 
stone  took  the  opportunity  of  freeing  himself  from  speech. 
further  responsibility  for  the  war.     Admitting,  as 
he  was  bound  to  admit,  that  its  original  inception 
was  just,  he  argued  that  its  objects  had  been  attained, 
and  that  the  proposed  limitation  of  Russian  ships 
in  the  Black  Sea  was  neither  practicable  nor  desir- 
able.    This  brought  up  Lord  John,  who  insisted 
that  the  limit  was  necessary  for  the  protection  of 
Constantinople.      His    speech    produced    a  great 
effect,  and  Mr.  Disraeli's  motion  was  defeated  by  a 
majority  of  a  hundred.    But  the  tide  was  beginning 

1  Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  vii.  p.  348. 


398   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  to  turn.  Mr.  Gladstone  was  followed  and  sup- 
ported by  two  young  members  of  great  ability, 
and  still  greater  promise.  One  was  Mr.  Roundell 
Palmer,  the  first  lawyer  of  his  generation.  The 
other  was  Lord  Stanley,  the  eldest  son  of  Lord 
Derby,  who,  differing  from  his  father  in  all  other 
respects,  resembled  him  in  intellectual  power.  The 
Lord  Greys  very  next  day  Lord  Grey  delivered  in  the  House 
against  of  Lords  the  ablest  speech  of  his  long  and  contro- 
versial life.  Lord  Grey  did  not  deal  in  mere 
generalities,  or  in  disquisition  upon  the  horrors  of  war. 
He  came  to  close  quarters  with  the  subject.  He 
showed,  by  a  careful  and  even  minute  examination 
of  the  Blue  Books,  that  the  charges  of  dishonesty 
against  Russia  were  unfounded,  that  Turkey  was  a 
disgrace  to  Europe,  and  that  it  could  not  be  the 
interest  of  England  to  uphold  the  Sultan's  rule. 
That  such  a  speech  should  have  made  no  impression 
is  inconceivable.  But  it  was  coldly  received,  and 
no  lay  peer  concurred  in  it,  except  Lord  Lyttelton. 
The  Bishop  of  Oxford,  a  sensitive  barometer,  ex- 
pressed in  a  trimming  oration  the  opinion  that  it 
was  time  for  peace.  The  bishop  was  a  good 
hater,  and  there  was  no  one  he  hated  more  than 
Lord  Palmerston.  He  would  not,  however,  have 
attacked  even  Lord  Palmerston  if  there  had  not 
been  a  perceptible  change  in  public  opinion.  An- 
other and  a  greater  churchman  took  a  similar  line. 
Montaiem-  Moiitalembert,  whose  character  and  talents  made 
support  of  his  support  of  the  Empire  invaluable,  pleaded  in  the 
Corps  Legislatif  for  agreement  with  Austria,  the 
great  Catholic  Power.  The  French  Parliament 
was  dead,  and  to  speak  in  it  was  like  speaking  in 
a  vault.  But  Montalembert  appealed  to  a  larger 
audience,  and  even  in  France  the  speech  of  an 
Imperialist  could  not  be  altogether  suppressed. 
The  failure  of  the  Conference  at  Vienna  exhibited 
to  the  world  the  spectacle  of  the  three  great  Powers 


Peelites. 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR  399 

fighting  to  the  death  over  the  question  how  many 
ships  of  war  one  of  them  should  be  allowed  to  keep 
in  a  sea  with  which  neither  of  the  others  had  any 
concern.  It  was  impossible  even  for  Lord  Pal- 
merston  to  silence  the  voice  of  reason  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis  was  of 
necessity  dumb.  He  had,  as  the  Greek  poet  says, 
an  ox  upon  his  tongue.  But  when  Mr.  Milner  The  peace 
Gibson,  on  the  4th  of  June,  denounced  the  con- 
tinuance  of  the  war,  he  was  for  the  first  time  sup- 
ported by  Sir  James  Graham  and  Mr.  Sidney 
Herbert.  Sir  William  Molesworth,  the  Radical 
Minister,  was  put  up  from  the  Treasury  Bench, 
and  vindicated  his  personal  consistency,  which  is 
dearer  to  most  politicians  than  the  justice  of  their 
cause.  John  Bright,  in  that  simply  beautiful  style 
which  commanded  the  admiration  alike  of  workmen 
and  of  scholars,  spoke  in  abhorrence  of  further 
slaughter.  Mr.  Cardwell,  in  more  measured 
language,  took  the  same  side.  Mr.  Walpole,  a  friend 
and  colleague  of  Lord  Derby,  declared  the  proposed 
limit  of  Russian  ships  to  be  "  illusory  as  well  as 
humiliating."  A  young  Tory,  destined  to  fill 
with  distinction  the  highest  places  in  the  State,1 
argued  in  the  same  sense.  Against  all  this  weight 
of  reason  and  logic  Lord  Palmerston  had  nothing 
to  set  except  an  imaginative  picture  of  Russia 
as  a  Colossus  stretching  from  the  Baltic  to  the 
Mediterranean.  If  the  war  was  still  popular  with 
the  unthinking  many,  it  had  begun  to  excite 
grave  doubts  and  scruples  among  the  thinking 
few. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  Lord  Palmerston's 
policy,  he  certainly  showed  the  utmost  vigour  in 
the  prosecution  of  the  war.  The  prospects  of 
success  for  the  Allies  were  much  improved  by  the 
resignation  of  General  Canrobert  and  the  appoint- 

1  Lord  Robert  Cecil,  afterwards  Marquess  of  Salisbury. 


1855.  ment  of  General  Pelissier  to  succeed  him,  on  the 
«ono?a"  16th  of  May.  Canrobert  was  an  excellent  General 
canrobert,  Qf  Divisiollj  an^  much  to  his  honour,  he  remained 
SumuS"  before  Sebastopol  in  that  capacity.  But  he  had  no 
pussier,  military  genius,  and  he  had  the  greatest  difficulty 
in  making  up  his  mind.  Pelissier's  motto  was 
"  The  siege,  the  siege,  and  nothing  beyond  it." l 
He  was  an  old  soldier  of  great  experience,  and 
Canrobert  had  served  under  him  in  Algeria.  If  he 
had  been  appointed  at  the  commencement  of  the 
campaign,  there  would  have  been  far  less  friction 
between  French  and  English,  inasmuch  as  he  had 
a  profound  respect  for  Lord  Raglan,  and  also  the 
courage,  which  Canrobert  lacked,  to  resist  the  inter- 
ference of  the  Emperor.  In  spite  of  his  devotion 
to  the  siege,  or  perhaps  because  of  it,  General 
Thewpe-  Pelissier  thoroughly  concurred  in  the  expedition  to 
Kertsch.  Kertsch,  of  which  Canrobert,  or  rather  the  Emperor, 
had  disapproved.  Kertsch  is  a  town  in  the  Cim- 
merian Bosphorus,  which  connects  the  Black  Sea  with 
the  Sea  of  Azov.  Its  importance  to  the  Russians, 
and  therefore  to  the  Allies,  lay  in  the  fact  that  it 
was  used  as  a  storehouse  of  provisions  for  the 
garrison  of  Sebastopol.  The  naval  expedition  was 
commanded  by  Sir  Edmund  Lyons  and  Admiral 
Bruat,  the  successor  of  Admiral  Hamelin,  who  had 
become  Minister  of  Marine.  Sir  George  Brown,  re- 
covered from  his  wound,  and  General  d'Autemarre 
were  in  charge  of  the  land  force.  The  superiority 
of  the  Allies  in  numbers  made  serious  resistance 
impossible,  and  Kertsch,  together  with  the  neigh- 
bouring town  of  Yenikale,  fell  into  their  hands. 
This  capture  was  most  valuable,  for  it  materially 
weakened  the  defence  of  Sebastopol.  The  Russians 
were  in  the  habit  of  sending  fifteen  hundred  wag- 
gons daily  from  Kertsch  to  Sebastopol  and  other 
parts  of  the  Crimea.  Seventeen  thousand  tons  of 

1  De  la  Gorce,  Histoire  du  Second  Empire,  vol.  i.  p.  395. 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   401 

coal  were  seized  there  by  the  Allies  for  the  benefit  1555. 
of  the  fleet.  Four  million  pounds  of  corn  and  half 
a  million  pounds  of  flour  were  destroyed  by  the 
Russians  on  the  24th  of  May  before  the  captors 
of  Kertsch  celebrated  the  Queen's  birthday  by 
entering  the  town.  Altogether  it  was  estimated 
that  four  months'  rations  for  an  army  of  a  hundred 
thousand  men  were  lost  to  Russia,  and  this  was  a 
loss  which  she  never  made  good.  About  seventy 
guns  were  also  taken,  and  this  was  done,  as 
Sir  George  Brown  said,  "  without  striking  a  blow, 
and  almost  without  firing  a  shot."  l 

But  the  18th  of  June,  the  anniversary  of 
Waterloo,  was  celebrated  in  a  much  less  fortunate 
manner  than  the  Queen's  birthday.  It  was 
selected  by  General  Pelissier  for  a  combined  attack  The  joint 
upon  the  Malakoff  and  the  Redan.2  The  White 
Quarries  had  already  been  taken  by  the  English, 
and  the  Mamelon  by  the  French.  Lord  Raglan 
was  not  favourable  to  this  assault,  believing  that  a 
continuous  bombardment  was  a  better  method  for 
the  reduction  of  Sebastopol.  General  Pelissier's 
plan,  in  which  Lord  Raglan  for  the  sake  of  union 
concurred,  was  that  the  French  should  attack  the 
Malakoff,  while  the  English  assailed  the  Redan. 
Early  in  the  morning  of  the  18th  the  fight  began. 
The  French  force  was  under  the  command  of 
General  Regnaud  de  St.  Jean  d'Angely,  the  chief 

1  "  We  are  masters  of  the  Sea  of  Azoff  without  a  casualty." — Lord 
Raglan  to  Lord  Panmure,  27th  May.  A  few  days  after  this,  on  the  5th 
of  June,  a  boat's  crew,  under  Lieutenant  Geneste,  attempting  to  land 
prisoners  with  a  flag  of  truce  at  Hango  in  the  Gulf  of  Finland,  were 
shot  down  by  Cossacks,  and  the  survivors  kept  in  captivity.  This  was 
the  worst  outrage  committed  in  the  war,  and  a  crime  against  the  law 
of  nature  as  well  as  against  the  law  of  nations. 

3  Among  those  who  distinguished  themselves  at  this  time  in  the 
trenches  were  two  young  officers,  destined  to  achieve  on  different 
fields  an  equally  durable  fame.  One  was  Garnet  Joseph  Wolseley, 
afterwards  Viscount  Wolseley,  Field -Marshal  Commander- in -Chief. 
The  other  was  Charles  George  Gordon,  the  pacificator  of  China,  the 
hero  and  martyr  of  Khartoum. 

VOL.  I  2  D 


402   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  of  the  Imperial  Guard.  The  English  force  was 
directed  by  Sir  George  Brown.  The  Russians 
were  fully  informed  of  this  joint  movement,  and 
made  ample  preparations  to  meet  it.  It  began 
badly.  General  Mayran  despatched  his  columns 
too  soon  without  waiting  for  the  proper  signal. 
They  were  received  with  a  storm  of  grape  and 
round-shot,  by  which  they  were  almost  annihilated, 
and  their  General  was  killed.  If  General  Mayran 
was  too  soon,  General  Brunet  was  too  late.  His 
division  became  entangled  in  the  trenches,  and  as 
the  men  struggled  out  they  were  shot  down, 
Brunet  among  the  first.  The  third  French 
Division,  General  d'Autemarre's,  was  more  fortu- 
nate. His  battalion  of  Chasseurs  took  the  Gervais 
Battery  at  a  run,  and  drove  out  the  Russian 
artillerymen  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  But  one 
battalion  could  not  storm  the  Malakoff,  and  the 
Chasseurs,  though  supported  by  General  Niel, 
were  eventually  driven  back  with  loss.  The 
British  troops,  also  in  three  divisions,  were  ordered 
by  Lord  Raglan  to  advance  upon  the  Redan.  It 
was  an  order  which  should  not  in  the  circum- 
stances have  been  given,  for  the  failure  of  the 
French  was  certain,  and  to  take  the  Redan  without 
taking  the  Malakoff  was  out  of  the  question.  But 
the  British  commander  considered  himself  bound 
by  his  agreement  with  Pelissier,  and  the  advance 
was  made.  The  Russians  kept  quiet  until  the 
storming  party  were  within  a  few  yards  of  the 
Redan.  Then  their  cannon  opened  with  one  of 
those  scourging  fires  before  which  no  human  force 
can  stand.  The  riflemen  lay  down  and  fired  at  the 
gunners.  But  the  supports  did  not  come  up. 
Many  of  them  were  raw  recruits,  and  they  would 
not  march  to  certain  death.  A  few  old  soldiers 
who  followed  their  officers,  and  the  officers  who 
led  them,  including  Colonel  Lacy  Yea,  the  hero  of 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   403 

the  Alma,  were  shot  down  in  a  moment.     In  an  1355. 
equally  hopeless  onslaught  upon  the  left  side  of  the 
Redan  Sir  John  Campbell  fell  at  the  head  of  his 
brigade. 

Truth  sits  upon  the  lips  of  dying  men,  and  the  causes  of 
cry  of  "murder"  which  was  heard  from  some  of1 
the  wounded  on  this  fatal  day  was  unfortunately 
true.  The  mismanagement  of  the  whole  affair 
from  beginning  to  end  was  utterly  deplorable. 
The  18th  Royal  Irish  under  General  Eyre  held  the 
cemetery  outside  Sebastopol,  and  even  penetrated 
into  the  town.  But  they  had  at  last  to  fall  back, 
leaving  a  third  of  their  number  behind  them.  "  I 
never  before  witnessed,"  said  Lord  Raglan  in  his 
despatch,  "such  a  continued  and  heavy  fire  of 
grape,  combined  with  musketry,  from  the  enemy's 
works,  which  appeared  to  be  fully  manned."  The 
victory  of  the  Russians  was  crushing  and  complete. 
The  blame  must  be  divided  between  the  French 
and  the  English  Commanders.  General  Pelissier 
was  guilty  of  fatal  precipitation  and  culpable  rash- 
ness in  not  continuing  the  bombardment  before  he 
ordered  the  assault.  Lord  Raglan  sacrificed  many 
lives  to  no  purpose  by  attempting  the  capture  of 
the  Redan  when  the  attack  upon  the  Malakoff  had 
failed.  He  acted  against  his  own  better  judgment 
in  deference  to  the  real  or  imaginary  exigencies 
of  the  alliance  with  the  Emperor  of  the  French. 
The  dire  consequences  of  that  dreadful  day,  the 
day  which  had  been  for  half  a  century,  and  is  for 
ever,  associated  with  the  memory  of  his  illustrious 
and  immortal  chief,  so  weighed  upon  his  mind  and 
depressed  his  spirits  that  he  fell  an  easy  victim  to 
the  prevailing  epidemic.  He  died  of  cholera  on  the  Death  of 
28th  of  June  1855,  in  his  sixty-eighth  year. 

During  the  period  which  elapsed  between  the 
battle  of  the  Alma  and  his  death,  Lord  Raglan 
was  the  subject  of  much  criticism  that  he  did  not 


404   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  deserve.  He  was  often  condemned  by  public 
opinion  for  defects  of  organisation  due  to  the 
Government  at  home,  and  for  an  inactivity  which 
was  imposed  upon  him  by  St.  Arnaud  or  by 
Canrobert.  The  tragic  circumstances  of  his  end, 
and  the  passionate  eloquence  of  Kinglake,  exalted 
him  into  a  paladin  of  romance.  He  was  a  man  of 
dauntless  courage  and  chivalrous  character,  the 
type  of  a  soldier  and  a  gentleman.  But  he  was 
not  equal  to  the  position  of  Commander-in- 
Chief.  During  the  long  years  of  peace  after  the 
Napoleonic  wars  his  duties  had  been  chiefly 
clerical,  and  for  the  responsibility  which  the 
Crimean  expedition  involved  he  had  had  no  train- 
ing whatsoever.  He  lacked  authority,  and  he  had 
not  a  strategic  mind.  Against  the  combinations 
of  such  an  intellect  as  Todleben's  his  "  Peninsular 
prejudices "  were  helpless.  In  a  battle  he  was 
everywhere.  During  the  weary  drudgery  of  the 
trenches  he  seemed  to  be  without  resource,  and  for 
the  first  few  months  of  the  siege  the  soldiers 
hardly  knew  him  by  sight.1  Nor  did  he  call  the 
attention  of  the  Government  in  time  to  the  defects 
of  transport  and  commissariat.  No  man,  however, 
showed  more  patience  or  magnanimity  under 
trying  conditions  than  Lord  Raglan.  In  his 
despatches  he  never  mentioned  himself,  and  he  was 
always  willing  to  bear  the  reproach  of  mistakes 
committed  by  others.  No  wonder  that  such  a 
man  should  inspire  enthusiastic  devotion  in  those 
who  knew  him.  It  was  his  misfortune  to  be 
placed  where  his  performances  were  naturally  con- 
trasted with  those  of  the  great  master  under 
whom  he  had  served. 

1  His  own  explanation  was  that  he  did  not  wish  to  disturb  the 
wearied  men  by  making  them  turn  out.  Lord  Raglan's  intentions 
were  always  excellent.  But  the  years  he  spent  at  the  Horse  Guards 
had  left  their  mark  upon  him. 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR  405 

But  Lord  Raglan  suffered  under  some  trials  to  U55. 
which  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  a  stranger.  J^  and 
He  was  the  first  General  to  be  accompanied  or  sur-  tte  Pres8- 
rounded  by  special  correspondents  of  enterprising 
newspapers,  and  yet  he  was  entrusted  with  no 
military  censorship  of  any  kind.  There  was  no 
limit  to  what  might  be  written  and  published  about 
the  state  of  the  army  under  his  command,  except 
the  discretion  of  correspondents  at  the  front  and 
the  discretion  of  editors  at  home.  The  corre- 
spondents trusted  their  editors.  The  editors 
trusted  their  correspondents.  The  gifted  and 
vivacious  Irishman  who  described  the  progress  of 
the  campaign  in  the  columns  of  the  Times  con- 
ferred a  public  benefit,  if  he  did  not  discharge  a 
public  duty,  by  calling  attention  to  the  needs  of 
the  soldiers.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Russell's 
letters  were  of  inestimable  value  to  the  defenders 
of  Sebastopol.  In  a  private  and  confidential  com- 
munication to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  dated  from 
Sebastopol  the  4th  of  January  1855,  Lord  Raglan 
enclosed  a  copy  of  the  Times  for  the  18th  of 
December,  with  the  following  among  other  com- 
ments :  "  Some  time  ago  the  correspondent  stated 
for  general  information,  and  practically  for  that  of 
Prince  Mentschikoff,  the  exact  position  in  which 
the  powder  for  our  siege  batteries  was  deposited, 
and  he  now  suggests  the  ease  with  which  the  ships 
in  Balaklava  harbour  could  be  set  on  fire.  He 
moreover  affords  the  Russian  General  the  satisfac- 
tion of  knowing  that  our  guns  stick  in  the  mud, 
and  our  horses  die  under  their  exertions.  ...  I 
am  very  doubtful,  now  that  the  communications 
are  so  rapid,  whether  a  British  army  can  long  be 
maintained  in  presence  of  a  powerful  enemy,  that 
enemy  having  at  his  command,  through  the 
English  press,  and  from  London  to  his  head- 
quarters by  telegraph,  every  detail  that  can  be 


406   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  required  of  the  numbers,  condition,  and  equipment 
of  his  opponent's  force."  While  these  disclosures 
were  being  made,  in  spite  of  urgent  remonstrances 
from  the  Secretary  of  State,  the  same  journal, 
then  at  the  height  of  its  reputation  and  the 
pinnacle  of  its  power,  was  daily  printing  bitter 
attacks  upon  Lord  Raglan  and  his  Headquarter 
Staff.  There  Mr.  Delane  and  his  colleagues  were 
of  course  within  their  right,  and  the  compulsory 
silence  of  the  French  press  was  a  loss,  as  well  as 
a  humiliation  to  France.  General  Canrobert's 
exemption  from  unofficial  criticism  neither  quick- 
ened his  impulse  nor  strengthened  his  hands.  But 

n  and  unfortunately  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  was  so 
frightened  by  the  public  opinion  presented  to  him 
by  the  Press  that  he  himself  turned  against  Lord 
Raglan.  With  the  assent  of  the  Cabinet,  he  wrote 
a  despatch  censuring  the  military  administration  in 
the  Crimea,  while  in  a  series  of  private  letters  he 
urged  the  removal  of  the  Adjutant  -  General, 
General  Escourt,  and  the  Quartermaster-General, 
Sir  Richard  Airey.  The  tone  of  the  despatch 
would  have  justified,  and  perhaps  compelled,  the 
resignation  of  a  civilian  who  had  so  completely  lost 
the  confidence  of  the  Government.  But  a  General 
in  the  field  cannot  well  resign,  and  Lord  Raglan 
never  thought  of  it.  He  replied  with  natural 
indignation,  and  at  the  same  time  with  perfect 
calmness,  warmly  supporting  the  accused  officers, 
and  declaring  that  he  devoted  to  the  discharge  of 
his  own  duty  the  whole  of  the  day,  and  the  greater 
part  of  the  night.  Soon  after  the  receipt  of  Lord 
Raglan's  reply  the  Government  of  Lord  Aberdeen 
was  defeated,  and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  retired 
from  office.  It  might  have  been  thought  that  now, 
at  all  events,  Lord  Raglan  would  be  loyally  sup- 
ported from  Downing  Street.  A  vigorous  prosecu- 
tion of  the  war  was  what  continental  demagogues 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   407 

call  the  "  mandate  "  of  the  new  Ministry,  and  Lord  1855. 
Palmerston  had  the  reputation  of  always  standing 
up  for  his  subordinates.  But  the  exact  opposite 
was  the  case.  If  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  chastised 
Lord  Raglan  with  whips,  Lord  Panmure  chastised  Bagian  and 
him  with  scorpions.  The  Duke,  though  he  weakly 
yielded  to  an  unfair  outcry,  and  meanly  sought  a 
scapegoat,  always  used  the  language  of  a  gentle- 
man. Lord  Panmure  was  coarse  and  insolent. 
He  called  the  Times  "  villainous,"  as  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle  had  called  it  "ruffianly."  But,  like  the 
Duke,  he  did  its  bidding.  In  his  despatch  to  the  Feb  12. 
Field- Marshal  commanding  the  Crimean  expedi- 
tion, he  wrote  :  "  It  would  appear  that  your  visits 
to  the  camp  were  few  and  far  between,  and  your 
Staff  seem  to  have  known  as  little  as  yourself  of 
the  condition  of  your  gallant  men."  In  a  private 
letter  he  added,  "Your  Staff  must  be  changed, 
and  that  radically."1  Neither  the  Duke  of  New- 
castle's despatch  nor  Lord  Panmure's  was  pub- 
lished at  the  time.  But  they  were  both  calcu- 
lated seriously  to  embarrass  a  commander  engaged 
in  an  arduous  campaign,  with  a  large  part  of  his 
army  disabled  by  sickness.  Lord  Hardinge,  who 
saw  Lord  Panmure's  letter,  was  profoundly  dis- 
gusted by  it,  as  well  he  might  be.  What  made  the 
whole  conduct  of  both  Governments,  Lord  Aber- 
deen's and  Lord  Palmerston's,  utterly  indefensible 
was  that  they  never  had  the  slightest  intention 
of  recalling  Lord  Raglan.  They  knew  him  to 
be  indispensable,  if  only  because  he  was  the 
one  man  who  could  successfully  maintain  the 
French  alliance  through  such  an  instrument  as 
Canrobert.  Lord  Raglan's  answer  to  Lord  Pan- 
mure  was  crushing  and  conclusive.  He  declined 
once  more  to  sacrifice  his  Staff,  and  declared 
that  if  he  were  deprived  of  General  Airey 

1  Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  vii.  p.  299. 


408    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1355.  he  should  have  a  serious  loss  inflicted  on  him, 
while  the  army  would  suffer  a  deprivation  which 
could  not  be  made  good.  He  complained,  with 
perfect  justice,  that  having  passed  a  life  of  honour, 
and  served  the  Crown  for  more  than  fifty  years,  he 
was  charged  with  every  species  of  neglect  without 
a  particle  of  evidence  on  the  word  of  irresponsible 
informants.1  Lord  Panmure  made  a  sort  of 
awkward  half -apology,  explaining  that  he  could 
not  know  Lord  Raglan  to  be  innocent,  and  only 
wanted  him  to  say  so.2  But  General  Simpson  was 
charged,  as  Chief  of  the  Staff,  a  new  term  in  the 
military  vocabulary  of  England,  to  investigate  the 
conduct  of  his  colleagues,  and  it  was  not  until  he 
reported  that,  in  difficult  circumstances,  they  had 
done  all  which  men  could  do  that  the  official 
attacks  upon  Lord  Raglan  ceased.  They  reflect 
deep  discredit  upon  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  and 
still  deeper  upon  Lord  Panmure.  But  the  worst 
offender  of  all  was  Lord  Palmerston,  who  actually 
wanted  to  change  Lord  Raglan's  Staff  without 
Lord  Raglan's  consent.3  This  outrage  was  frus- 
trated by  Mr.  Gladstone  before  he  resigned,  and 
by  other  members  of  the  Cabinet.  But  Lord 
Raglan  had  no  real  champion  in  official  circles 
at  home  except  Lord  Hardinge,  and  his  death 
before  the  completion  of  his  labours  may  not  un- 
fairly be  ascribed  less  to  the  defeat  at  the  Redan 
on  the  18th  of  June  than  to  the  disloyalty  of 
Ministers  who  desired  to  be  associated  in  his 
triumphs  without  sharing  the  responsibilities  of 
his  trials. 

In  France  the  18th  of  June  had  serious  conse- 
quences. Although  Parliament  was  almost  wholly 
dumb,  and  the  Press  almost  entirely  gagged,  the 

1  Lord  Raglan  to  Lord  Panmure,  3rd  March  1855. 
*  Lord  Panmure  to  Lord  Raglan,  19th  March  1855. 
3  Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the  Crimea  vol.  vii.  p.  287. 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   409 

signs  of  public  discontent  could  not  be  ignored  by  1355. 
the  nervous  occupant  of  the  Tuileries,  and  the 
Emperor  was  with  difficulty  prevented  by  Marshal 
VaiUant  from  recalling  General  Pelissier.1  In 
England  the  war  was  still  popular,  but  a  highly 
critical  spirit  prevailed,  and  there  was  a  powerful 
Opposition  in  the  House  of  Commons,  who  would 
not  forego  their  rights.  Speaking  at  the  Trinity 
House  on  the  9th  of  June,  Prince  Albert  declared 
that  constitutional  Government  was  on  its  trial,  and 
urged  the  duty  of  placing  more  confidence  in  the 
Ministers  of  the  Crown.  The  speech,  made  in  the 
presence  of  Lord  Palmerston,  was  not  altogether 
judicious,  nor  was  the  resentment  which  it  caused 
unnatural.  Englishmen  thought,  and  were  justified 
in  thinking,  that  they  knew  more  about  constitu- 
tional principles  than  either  Prince  Albert  himself 
or  his  German  mentor,  Baron  Stockmar.  At  the 
same  time  it  must,  in  justice  to  the  Prince,  be 
observed,  that  so  far  as  his  remarks  had  any  per- 
sonal bearing,  they  tended  to  support  the  very 
Minister  whom  he  had  most  reason  to  dislike. 
Moreover,  there  was  general  discontent  throughout 
the  country  with  the  administration  of  the  public 
service,  and  with  the  favour  shown  to  a  privileged  ocace  and 
class.  The  first  Secretary  of  State  for  Warpr 
belonged  to  the  highest  rank  in  the  peerage,  and 
he  had  practically  acknowledged  himself  to  be 
unfit  for  his  post.  Lord  Raglan,  at  that  time 
unjustly  depreciated,  was  the  younger  son  of  a 
Duke.  Lord  Lucan  and  Lord  Cardigan,  who  had 
no  qualifications  for  command  except  personal 
courage,  were  Earls.  So  was  Lord  Aberdeen,  then 
the  most  unpopular  man  in  the  country.  To 
reform  the  army  was  at  the  moment  impossible. 
But  a  proposal  made  in  the  House  of  Commons 
on  the  6th  of  July  for  throwing  open  the  Civil 

1  De  la  Gorce,  Histoire  du  Second  Empire,  vol.  i.  pp.  411,  412. 


410   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  Service  to  competition,  in  accordance  with  the 
Report  of  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  and  Sir  Stafford 
North  cote,  was  only  rejected  by  a  majority 
of  15,  and  received  the  powerful  support  of 
Mr.  Gladstone. 

The  House,  however,  ignoring  Prince  Albert, 
soon  plunged  into  the  more  attractive  region  of 
party  politics.  Irritated  by  the  rejection  of  the 
Austrian  proposals  at  the  Conference  of  Vienna, 
Count  Buol,  the  Austrian  Chancellor,  disclosed  the 
fact  that  they  had  been  supported  by  Lord  John 

Lord  John   Russell,  as  well  as  by  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys.    Lord 

fa™!6  John  was  of  course  asked  whether  this  was  true, 
and  of  course  he  could  not  deny  it.  For  fear  of  en- 
dangering the  alliance  with  the  French  Emperor,  to 
whom  the  policy  of  Austria  was,  as  he  now  found, 
unpalatable,  he  refrained  from  taking  at  home  the 
line  he  had  taken  at  Vienna,  and  let  it  be  supposed 
that  he  had  sacrificed  his  convictions  rather  than 
resign  his  office.  This  was  not,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
case,  and  his  colleagues  in  the  Cabinet,  knowing  that 
it  was  not,  were  willing  to  stand  by  him.  But  the 
storm  proved  too  strong  for  him,  and  for  them. 
Lord  John  received  no  sympathy  from  any  quarter. 
Mr.  Cobden  exclaimed  that  he  repented  of  the 
vote  which  he  had  given  against  the  Government 
of  Lord  Derby,  for  it  had  cost  a  hundred  millions 
sterling  and  twenty  thousand  lives.  As  Lord  Derby 
was  a  vehement  supporter  of  the  war,  Mr.  Cobden's 
reasoning  is  unwontedly  obscure.  But  Lord  John's 
confessions  undoubtedly  strengthened  the  arguments 
of  the  far-sighted  patriots,  miscalled  "Russians," 
who  believed  that  an  opportunity  for  making 
peace  had  been  thrown  away.  Mr.  Disraeli  seldom 
threw  away  opportunities,  and  on  the  10th  of  July 
his  intimate  friend  Sir  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton 

™teofed     gave  notice  of  a  vote  of  censure  on  Lord  John. 

censure.      The  Cabinet  were  still  prepared  to  support  their 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   411 

plenipotentiary.  But  revolt  broke  out  where  iti855. 
was  least  expected.  Those  members  of  the  Govern- 
ment  who  do  not  sit  in  the  Cabinet  are  usually  the  £ent,rn 
meekest  and  the  most  subservient  of  all  minis- 
terialists. They  vote  with  the  regularity  of  machines 
for  a  policy  they  have  had  no  hand  in  framing, 
and  they  never  speak  except  on  the  business  of 
their  Departments,  or  by  special  request  from  the 
Leader  of  the  House.  Mr.  Bernal  Osborne's 
singular  outbreak  in  the  debate  on  Mr.  Roebuck's 
motion  was  regarded  as  portentous.  It  proved  to 
be  also  contagious.  Headed  by  Mr.  Bouverie, 
Vice-President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  these  long- 
suffering  subordinates  rebelled,  and  intimated  that 
unless  Lord  John  Russell  resigned,  they  would  vote 
with  Bulwer-Lytton.  Lord  John  once  more  ten- 
dered  his  resignation,  and  this  time  Lord  Palmerston  LSaj 
made  no  effort  to  retain  him.  The  motion  of 
censure  was  accordingly  withdrawn,  after  a  bitter 
attack  upon  Lord  John  by  the  mover,  and  an  ex- 
tremely clever  speech  from  Mr.  Disraeli,  in  which 
he  gave  the  credit  of  rejecting  the  Austrian  pro- 
posals to  the  Emperor  of  the  French.  This  was 
not  the  whole  truth,  for  Palmerston  would  have 
rejected  them  on  his  own  account.  But  it  showed 
that  Mr.  Disraeli  knew  more  than  any  one  else 
outside  the  Cabinet.  It  showed  also,  not  for  the 
first  nor  for  the  last  time,  his  sympathetic  admira- 
tion for  Louis  Napoleon,  whose  career  was  not 
more  wonderful  than  his  own. 

The  Report  of  the  Sebastopol  Committee,  which 
had  been  presented  to  the  House  of  Commons  on 
the  18th  of  June,  was  brought  up  for  discussion 
on  the  17th  of  July.1  The  Committee  found 

1  This  very  able,  though  in  some  respects  unfair,  document  was 
substantially  the  work  of  Lord  Seymour,  afterwards  Duke  of  Somerset. 
Th6  Chairman's  draft  Report  was  almost  entirely  rejected  in  favour  of 
Lord  Seymour's. 


412    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  that  sufficient  care  was  not  taken  for  the  wants 
and  sufferings  of  the  soldiers,  and  the  distribution 
of  green  coffee  was  strongly  denounced.  The 
transport  was  declared  to  have  been  inefficient, 
and  under  no  responsible  head,  as  both  Lord 
Raglan  and  Admiral  Dundas  refused  to  exercise 
any  authority  over  it.  But  the  strongest  censure 
of  the  Committee,  which  did  not  spare  either 
Sir  Hamilton  Seymour1  or  Lord  Stratford  de 
Redcliffe,2  was  reserved  for  the  Administration  of 
Lord  Aberdeen.  "Your  Committee  report  that 
the  sufferings  of  the  army  mainly  resulted  from  the 
circumstances  under  which  the  expedition  to  the 
Crimea  was  undertaken  and  executed.  The  Ad- 
ministration which  ordered  that  expedition  had  no 
adequate  information  as  to  the  amount  of  the 
forces  in  the  Crimea.  They  were  not  acquainted 
with  the  strength  of  the  fortresses  to  be  attacked, 
or  with  the  resources  of  the  country  to  be  invaded. 
They  hoped  and  expected  the  expedition  to  be 
immediately  successful,  and  as  they  did  not  foresee 
the  probability  of  a  protracted  struggle,  they  made 
no  preparation  for  a  winter  campaign."  In  this 
language,  the  language  of  the  Report,  there  is 
some  exaggeration  and  some  error.  The  Foreign 
Office  was  in  possession  before  the  war  of  a  pretty 
accurate  estimate  of  the  Russian  forces  in  the 
Chersonese,  and  the  fortifications  of  Sebastopol 
were  not  in  existence  when  the  battle  of  the  Alma 
was  fought.3  If  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  had  been 
a  Carnot,  he  could  not  have  foretold  Todleben. 
But  when  the  necessary  deductions  have  been 
made,  enough  remains  to  justify  the  general  infer- 
Eoebucks  ences  of  the  Committee.  Yet  when  Mr.  Roebuck 

vote  of  _  _  ,        ,  _. 

censure,      proposed  a  vote  ot  censure  on  the  late  Government, 

1  Ambassador  at  Petersburg.  8  Ambassador  at  Constantinople. 

8  It  will  be  remembered  that  neither  Lord  Raglan  nor  the  British 
Government  were  responsible  for  the  fatal  delay  after  the  battle. 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   413 

he  was  defeated  by  more  than  a  hundred  votes.  1555. 
The  House  was  beginning  to  have  a  little  too 
much  of  Mr.  Roebuck,  in  whose  patriotic  ardour 
there  was  often  a  disagreeable  flavour  of  personal 
spite.  Men  did  not  forget  that  when  the  Com- 
mittee was  appointed,  he  had  had  the  supremely 
bad  taste  to  speak  of  Lord  Raglan  as  "  the  prisoner 
in  the  dock."1  Moreover,  censure  of  a  Govern- 
ment which  has  ceased  to  exist  is  a  brutum  fulmen, 
for  it  produces  no  effect  at  all.  Lord  Aberdeen 
and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  could  only  be  punished 
by  impeachment,  which  even  Mr.  Roebuck  did  not 
propose,  and  half  the  Cabinet  of  Lord  Palmerston, 
including  Lord  Palmerston  himself,  would  have 
been  compelled  to  resign  if  the  motion  had  been 
carried.  It  was  not,  however,  formally  rejected,  its  failure 
but  shelved  by  the  previous  question,  moved  by 
General  Peel,  a  member  of  the  Committee,  and 
seconded  by  Lord  Robert  Cecil.  Lord  John 
Russell  did  something  to  regain  the  credit  he  had 
lost  in  January  by  declaring  in  debate  that  every 
member  of  Lord  Aberdeen's  Cabinet  was  fully 
responsible  for  the  consequences  of  the  expedition 
to  the  Crimea. 

Mr.  Roebuck's  Committee  was   not  the   only 
instrument   of  inquiry   into   the    conduct   of  the 
campaign.      Lord    Palmerston    had    fulfilled    his 
promise  by  sending  two  Commissioners,  Sir  John  The 
McNeill  and  Colonel  Tulloch,  to  the  Crimea.     The  coiS 
Commissioners  censured  several  officers,  including SK 
Sir    Richard   Airey,    the    Quartermaster -General, 
Lord  Lucan,  and  Lord  Cardigan.     But  these  were 
all  subsequently  acquitted,  Airey  with  undoubted 
justice,   by   a   professional   tribunal   before   which 

1  Roebuck's  chief  supporter  at  this  time,  an  abler  man  than  himself, 
was  Austen  Henry  Layard,  the  explorer  of  Nineveh,  then  Member  for 
Aylesbury,  afterwards  Sir  Henry  Layard,  Minister  at  Madrid  and 
Ambassador  at  Constantinople.  Mr.  Layard  had  been  an  eye-witness 
of  the  Alma  and  of  Inkerman. 


414   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  they  demanded  to  be  brought,1  and  the  permanent 
value  of  the  Crimean  Report  lies  chiefly  in  the  just 
tribute  which  the  Commissioners  paid  to  the  heroic 
endurance  of  the  Crimean  army.  "  Both  men  and 
officers,"  they  wrote,  "  when  so  reduced  that  they 
were  hardly  fit  for  the  lighter  duties  of  the  camp, 
scorned  to  be  excused  the  severe  and  perilous  work 
of  the  trenches,  lest  they  should  throw  an  undue 
amount  of  work  upon  their  comrades.  Yet  they 
maintained  every  foot  of  ground  against  the  enemy, 
and  with  numbers  so  small  that  few  other  troops 
would  have  even  made  the  attempt."  Not  less 
remarkable  were  the  entire  absence  of  serious 
crime,  the  rarity  of  drunkenness,  and  the  exem- 
plary standard  of  conduct  observed  among  all 
ranks  of  the  soldiers. 

Before  Parliament  rose,  the  Government  of 
Lord  Palmerston  narrowly  escaped  a  defeat  which 
they  richly  deserved.  They  proposed  a  joint  guar- 
me  Turkish  antee  with  France  for  a  loan  of  five  millions  to 
Turkey.  This  profligate  waste  was  strongly  opposed 
in  unanswerable  speeches  both  by  Mr.  Gladstone  and 
Mr.  Disraeli.  The  Government  carried  their  loan 
on  the  20th  of  July  by  a  majority  of  three  votes 
only.  It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  the  balance  was 
not  the  other  way.  For,  as  might  be  expected, 
the  money  was  not  spent  upon  the  war,  but  squan- 
dered by  the  Sultan  upon  his  palace  and  his 
seraglio.  Well  might  Mr.  Gladstone  exclaim  that 
Turkey,  "  our  old  ally,"  was  "  such  an  ally  as 
^Eneas  found  Anchises  in  his  flight  from  Troy." : 
This  was  in  the  last  Eastern  debate  of  the  session, 
raised  on  the  3rd  of  August  by  Mr.  Laing,  a 
hard-headed  Scottish  philosopher,  and  an  earnest 
advocate  of  peace.  Peace  was  still  far  off, 

1  It  sat  at  Chelsea  Hospital  from  the  3rd  of  April  to  the  4th  of  July 
1856,  and  was  open  to  the  public. 

2  He  had  to  carry  him  on  his  shoulders. — Virgil,  JBneid,  ii.  804. 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   415 

and   Lord    Palmerston's   views   were   still   in   the  1855. 
ascendant. 

But  though  war  necessarily  impedes  all  social 
and  political  legislation,  one  measure  of  real  and 
salutary  reform  was  added  to  the  Statute  Book  in 
the  year  1855.  The  Queen's  Speech  which  pro- 
rogued Parliament  on  the  14th  of  August, 
announced  also  that  the  principle  of  limited  The  Limited 
liability  had  become  the  law  of  the  land.  Perhaps  Act 
no  Act  ever  passed  has  saved  so  many  families 
from  sudden  and  ruinous  disaster  as  this  unpre- 
tending reform.  Before  1855  the  failure  of  a  com- 
mercial company  in  which  a  man  had  invested  a 
hundred  pounds  involved  the  loss  of  every  penny 
he  had  in  the  world.  After  1855,  if  the  company 
were  limited,  he  might,  of  course,  lose  what  he  had 
invested,  but  he  could  lose  no  more.  Far  less 
fortunate,  and  far  less  wise,  was  the  measure  which 
established  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works.  The  Metro- 
London  outside  the  City  had  still  no  system  ofsoar/ot 
self-government  more  central  than  the  vestry. 
As  a  remedy  for  this  grievance  it  was  provided 
that  matters  of  common  interest  to  Londoners, 
which  might  properly  be  charged  upon  a  general 
rate,  should  be  entrusted  to  a  body  composed  of 
representatives  from  all  the  vestries  sitting  together. 
But  the  principle  of  double  election  has  never 
succeeded  in  this  country,  and  the  method  of 
choosing  the  vestries  themselves  left  much  to  be 
desired.  The  Metropolitan  Board  was  responsible 
neither  to  Parliament  nor  to  the  ratepayers.  It 
became  a  focus  of  jobbery  and  corruption.  Yet  it 
achieved  one  magnificent  enterprise,  and  against 
its  misdeeds  deserves  to  be  set  the  construction  of 
the  Thames  Embankment. 

The  session  of  1855  was  marked  by  a  striking 
example  of  mob  law.      Lord  Robert  Grosvenor,1 

1  Afterwards  Lord  Ebury. 


416   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  a  prominent  evangelical  and  a  fussy  Sabbatarian, 
Trad!ngday  introduced  a  Bill  to  put  down  Sunday  trading  in 
London,  which  was  read  a  second  time  without 
a  division,  and  passed  safely  through  Committee. 
The  public,  even  the  London  public,  appeared  to  be 
taking  little  if  any  notice  of  it,  and  in  a  few  weeks 
it  would  probably  have  been  added  to  the  Statute 
Book.  Suddenly  it  dawned  upon  the  masses  of  the 
capital  that  their  personal  liberty  in  eating  and 
drinking  was  about  to  be  infringed.  On  Sunday 
the  24th  of  June  there  were  hostile  demonstrations 
in  Hyde  Park,  and  on  the  two  following  Sundays 
serious  riots  occurred.  Sir  George  Grey,  acting  on 
a  view  of  the  law  that  had  not  then  been  called 
in  question,  prohibited  all  meetings  in  the  London 
parks,  which,  he  said,  were  meant  for  general  enjoy- 
ment. The  immediate  result  of  this  imprudent 
order  was  a  serious  collision  between  the  police  and 
the  crowd,  with  much  breaking  of  windows,  and 
some  breaking  of  heads.  But  the  mob  triumphed. 
On  the  2nd  of  July  Lord  Robert  Grosvenor  with- 
drew his  Bill,  and  the  lesson  was  not  forgotten. 
The  following  Sunday  was  the  worst  of  the  three, 
for  the  rioters  celebrated  their  victory  at  the  expense 
of  peaceful  citizens  and  of  the  police. 

Meanwhile  the  position  of  Sebastopol  was  at 
last  becoming  desperate.  The  capture  of  Kertsch 
and  Yenikale  removed  the  main  source  of  supplies 
for  the  garrison.  The  losses  of  the  Russians  from 
the  bombardment  were  steadily  increasing,  and 
General  Todleben,  their  illustrious  engineer,  was 
disabled  by  a  serious  wound.  Osten-Sacken,  the 
military  Governor  of  the  town,  was  for  surrender, 
and  Prince  MentschikofF  would  probably  have 
agreed  with  him.  But  MentschikofF  had  been 
succeeded  in  March  by  Prince  Michael  GortschakofF, 
a  man  of  more  spirit,  who  declined  to  adopt  what 
he  regarded  as  a  dishonourable  course.  On  the 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   417 

contrary,  he  determined  to  attack  the  French  under  1355. 
General  Herbillon,  and  the  Italians  under  General 
La  Marmora.     On  the  15th  of  August,  at  night,  the  Battle  of 
Russian  army  moved  down  from  Mackenzie's  Farm,  naV " 
and  occupied  the  range  of  hills  above  Tchorgoun. 
General  Read,aRussian  officer  of  Scottish  parentage, 
was   opposed  to  the  French.      General   Liprandi 
operated  against  the   Italians.      The  two  attacks 
were  delivered  simultaneously  on  the  early  and  misty 
morning  of  the  16th.     The  attack  on  the  left  of  the 
line   was    signally   repulsed   by   the   French,    and 
General  Read  was  killed.    In  the  centre  the  struggle 
was  longer,  and  for  a  time  more  doubtful     But 
finally  the  Zouaves  drove  the  enemy  back  over  the 
Tchernaya,   and  compelled   them   to  retreat  with 
great    loss.      General    La    Marmora    retook   the 
advanced  positions  which  his  outposts  had  occupied 
on  the  heights  of  Tchorgoun,  and  by  three  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon  the  whole  of  the  Russian  army 
had  disappeared.      It  was  estimated  to  consist  of 
about  fifty  thousand  men,  and  to  have  lost  at  least 
five  thousand,  while  our  Allies  lost  one  thousand 
out  of  twenty.      The  Italians  held  their  position 
with  great  tenacity,  and  after  their  supports  had 
come  up,  they  defeated  Liprandi,  thus  materially 
contributing  to  the  success  of  the  day.   The  British 
artillery   rendered   valuable    assistance.       But   the 
important  feature  of  the  engagement  was  the  share 
taken  in  it  by  the  Piedmontese.     They  had  hitherto 
had  to  contend  with  no  other  enemy  than  cholera, 
from  which  they  suffered  severely.     At  the  Tcher- 
naya they  fought  with    the    utmost  intrepidity, 
though    their    losses   were    small,    and   when   the 
news    of   their    exploits    reached    Turin,    Cavour 
must  have   felt  that  a  blow  for  the  liberation  of 
Italy  had  been  struck  before  the  walls  of  Sebas- 
topol.     The  Queen  heard  of  this  memorable  battle 
while    she   was    staying  with    her    husband    and 
voi>.  i  2  E 


418    HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

185?.  children  at  St.  Cloud  as  the  guests  of  the  French 
Emperor.  The  visit  was  in  itself  successful,  and 
the  natural  dignity  of  the  British  Sovereign  made 
a  striking  impression  upon  the  critical  people  of 
Paris.  But  neither  the  war  nor  the  alliance  was 
really  popular  with  the  French  nation,  and  the 
crowds  who  turned  out  to  see  the  Royal  family  in 
Paris  were  moved  more  by  curiosity  than  by  any 
other  feeling. 

The  Fail  of  Throughout  this  summer  the  state  of  Sebas- 
topol  had  been  going  rapidly  from  bad  to  worse. 
From  two  hundred  and  fifty  men  killed  in 
a  day  the  number  rose  to  a  thousand,  and 
even  beyond  it.  But  after  the  battle  of  the 
Tchernaya  the  garrison  made  no  further  sortie, 
and  awaited  with  grim  determination  the  in- 
evitable end.  Todleben  had  recovered,  but 
Admiral  Nakhimoff,  the  successor  of  Khorniloff, 
was  no  more.  Even  Todleben  had  given  up 
hope,  and  the  miseries  of  the  besieged  were  ex- 
treme. It  was  said  by  one  of  the  victims  that 
statesmen  who  made  wars  lightly  should  be 
taken  to  see  the  hospital  for  incurable  cases  at 
Sebastopol.  At  length  the  long  agony  of  the 
city  was  brought  to  a  close.  After  the  death 
of  Lord  Raglan,  General  Simpson  had  succeeded 
as  senior  officer  to  the  command,  Sir  George 
Brown,  a  far  abler  man,  being  on  his  way  home. 
It  was  agreed  between  Simpson  and  Pelissier 
that  on  the  8th  of  September  the  French  should 
assault  the  Malakoff,  while  the  English,  after  the 
Malakoff  had  fallen,  were  to  make  an  attempt 
upon  the  Redan,  which  was  untenable  so  long 
as  the  enemy  were  in  possession  of  the  Mala- 
koff. Three  days  before  the  great  attack,  a 
heavy  fire  was  opened  by  the  Allies  upon  both 
the  Malakoff  and  the  Redan.  The  number  of 
their  guns  was  eight  hundred,  and  of  these  six 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   419 

hundred  were  French.1  This  terrible  bombard- 1355. 
ment,  which  the  Russians  called  an  "  infernal  fire," 
was  by  far  the  most  destructive  of  the  whole  siege, 
and  if  it  had  been  continued  for  a  week,  it  would 
probably  have  led  to  the  fall  of  Sebastopol.  The 
Generals,  however,  being,  it  is  said,  short  of  am- 
munition, decided  to  proceed  by  assault.  The 
Light  and  Second  Divisions,  under  General  Sir 
William  Codrington,  were  selected  to  assail  the 
Redan,  although  they  had  served  longest  in  the 
trenches,  were  the  most  fatigued,  and  contained  the 
largest  number  of  raw  recruits.  General  de  Salles 
commanded  the  French  assault  upon  the  Malakoff.  French 
One  of  the  divisional  officers  under  him  was  Mac-  on  the 
mahon,  long  afterwards  President  of  the  French  M 
Republic.  The  hour  chosen  for  the  French  attack 
was  noon,  the  last  the  Russians  expected,  and 
they  were  fairly  surprised.  The  first  brigade, 
Macmahon's,  was  within  five-and-twenty  yards  of 
the  Malakoff  when  the  order  for  advance  was  given. 
The  Malakoff  was  captured  in  a  few  minutes,  and  its  success. 
so  entirely  unexpected  was  the  assault  that  the 
Russian  officers  were  actually  found  at  dinner  in  a 
bomb-proof  room.  They  were  all  killed  or  taken 
prisoners.  Six  times  the  Russians  endeavoured 
to  recapture  the  Malakoff,  and  for  seven  hours 
Macmahon  held  out  against  them.  At  last  they 
desisted,  and  Sebastopol  was  then  virtually  taken. 
The  Curtain  battery  was  seized  by  La  Motte 
Rouge,  and  the  little  Redan  by  Dulac.  But  from 
both  these  forts  the  French  were  expelled  after 
desperate  fighting,  with  the  loss  of  four  thousand 
men,  and  a  French  assault  upon  the  Central 
Bastion  under  Le  Vaillant  was  repulsed  with 
frightful  slaughter.  Upon  seeing  Pelissier's  signal 
that  the  Malakoff  was  in  the  hands  of  the  French, 

1  Throughout  the  siege  the  French  artillery  was  greatly  superior  to 
our  own. 


420   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  General   Simpson    ordered    the    attack    upon   the 
Redan  by  sending  up  four  rockets.     But  the  force 

uie  Redan,  employed  for  the  purpose  was  far  too  small,  and  it 
was  met  by  such  a  murderous  fire  that  at  first 
the  Light,  and  afterwards  the  Second,  Division 
would  go  no  further.  The  officers  did  their  utmost, 
especially  General  Windham,  in  charge  of  the 
Light  Division,  the  first  Englishman  to  enter  the 
Redan.  After  sending  three  officers  to  Sir  William 
Codrington  for  assistance,  who  were  all  killed, 

ite  failure.  Windham  went  himself.  During  his  absence  the 
ammunition  of  the  English  in  the  Redan  was 
exhausted,  their  officers  were  slain,  and  they  were 
driven  out.  The  British  guns  were  then  turned 
upon  the  Redan,  and  silenced  the  guns  of  the 
enemy.  The  assault  was  to  have  been  renewed  the 
next  day,  but  the  time  for  renewal  never  came. 

Destruction  The  Russians  evacuated  the  south  side  of  Sebastopol 
during  the  night,  and  blew  up  all  their  magazines, 
beginning  with  the  magazine  of  the  Redan.  The 
ships  in  the  harbour  were  sunk,  and  the  city  was 
laid  in  ruins.  Every  building  of  any  size  was 
destroyed,  except  one  large  barrack  reserved  for  the 
dying  and  the  dead. 

Thus  the  greatest  naval  fortress  of  Russia  had 
ceased  to  exist,  and  her  fleet  was  at  the  bottom  of 
the  Black  Sea.  Yet  the  war  was  not  over.  Prince 

ance  o  e  Qorj-scna]^ofj*  though  he  made  no  effort  to  conceal 
the  magnitude  of  the  disaster,  reminded  his  army 
that  the  destruction  of  Moscow  led  neither  to  the 
conquest  of  Russia  nor  to  the  victory  of  Napoleon. 
In  sober  truth  the  Allies  were  at  a  loss  what  to 

TheRrench  do  next.     The  French  Emperor,  who  understood 

plans.  nothing  of  military  affairs,  was  full  of  plans.  He 
wanted  to  expel  the  Russians  from  their  position  at 
Mackenzie's  Farm,  to  chase  them  from  the  northern 
forts,  to  drive  them  as  far  as  Simpheropol,  and  even 
to  restore  Sebastopol.  But  Pelissier  would  not 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   421 

take  military  instructions  from  the  Emperor,  and  the  1355. 
Emperor  could  not  afford  to  quarrel  with  Pe'lissier.  p«.is.slf 3 

A  i        i   •  rcsiswiuo^s 

On  the  contrary,  he  made  him  Duke  of  Malakoff, 
and  a  Marshal  of  France.  Instead  of  reconstruct- 
ing Southern  Sebastopol,  the  Allies  exploded  what 
was  left  of  it,  and  made  it  a  heap  of  ruins.  Lord 
Palmerston,  so  far  from  desiring  peace,  regarded  it 
as  a  greater  danger  to  British  interests  than  the 
continuance  of  the  war,  and  this  opinion  he  retained 
even  after  Louis  Napoleon  had  completely  changed 
his  views.  The  young  Emperor  Alexander  was 
still  reluctant  to  treat,  and  he  was  encouraged  by 
the  inaction  of  the  allied  forces.  To  the  evils  of  a 
divided  command  were  added  those  of  an  incompe- 
tent commander.  General  Simpson  neither  inspired 
confidence  in  others  nor  felt  confidence  in  himself. 
The  British  defeat  at  the  Redan,  so  glorious  to 
General  Windham,  was  fatal  to  the  reputation  of 
Simpson,  and  on  the  llth  of  November  he  was 
permitted  to  retire  in  favour  of  General  Sir  William 
Codrington.1  General  Windham,  the  hero  of  the  appo 
Redan,  became  Chief  of  the  Staff.  It  had  been  m 
originally  intended  to  give  Windham  the  first 
place,2  but  neither  his  rank  nor  his  previous 
career  seemed  to  justify  so  sudden  an  elevation. 
Sir  William  Codrington  was  the  son  of  the  Admiral 
who  commanded  the  British  fleet  at  Navarino. 
His  appointment  could  only  be  explained  on  the 
hereditary  principle,  for  his  behaviour  on  the  18th 
of  June,  when  he  left  Colonel  Windham  for  hours 
without  reinforcements,  thereby  losing  the  Redan, 
would  have  been  a  better  ground  for  putting  him 
on  his  trial  before  a  court-martial  than  for  setting 
him  at  the  head  of  an  army.  General  Simpson's 
last  duty  was  to  join  with  the  French  in  the  plan 

1  Sir  James  Simpson  was  consoled  with  the  Grand  Cross  of  the 
Bath. 

2  "Greville  Memoirs,"  2nd  October  1865. 


422   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  of  an  expedition  against  the  citadel  of  Kinburn, 
dition'to     near  the  mouth  of  the  Dnieper,  and  opposite  the 
Kinbum.     great   commercial   port   of  Odessa.     On   the   7th 
of  October  the  allied  fleets  sailed  from  Kamiesch 
Bay.     Odessa  was  spared,  though  its  destruction 
would  have  been  a  legitimate  act  of  warfare.     But 
Kinburn  was  vigorously  bombarded,  and   on  the 
17th   it   surrendered.      The   garrison   consisted  of 
fourteen  thousand  men,  of  whom  three  hundred 
were   killed  and  five  hundred  wounded.     Eighty 
guns  and  much  ammunition  were   taken   by  the 
Allies.     The  neighbouring  fortress  of  OczakofF  was 
blown  up  and  abandoned  the  next  day. 
me  In  Asiatic  Turkey  the  Russians  were  rewarded 

!?  Ke^er  with  a  considerable  success,  which,  though  a  very 
inadequate  recompense  for  the  loss  of  Sebas- 
topol,  did  something  to  soothe  the  wounded  pride 
of  their  Emperor  and  his  Generals.  The  fortress 
of  Kars,  in  Armenia,  had  been  besieged  by  General 
Mouravieff  since  the  beginning  of  June.  The  gar- 
rison was  Turkish,  but  the  officers  were  English - 
Fenwick  men.  General  Williams,  afterwards  Sir  Fen  wick 
Williams  of  Kars,  was  in  command.  His  defence 
of  the  town  against  superior  numbers,  and  despite 
cruel  privations,  has  made  his  name  illustrious. 
His  subordinates,  Colonel  Lake  and  Major  Tees- 
dale,  will  always  be  associated  with  him  in  fame. 
Basely  deserted  by  Omar  Pasha,  the  Turkish  Com- 
mander-in-Chief,  and  ignored  by  Lord  Stratford,  to 
whom  Fenwick  Williams  appealed,  these  gallant 
Britons,  and  the  brave  Turks  whom  they  com- 
manded, held  out  till  the  end  of  November,  in 
circumstances  which  would  have  made  men  of 
ordinary  courage  despair.  On  Michaelmas  Day, 
three  weeks  after  the  fall  of  Sebastopol,  General 
Mouravieff  made  a  determined  attack  upon  the 
town.  The  key  of  the  position  was  Fort  Lake, 
called  after  the  Colonel,  and  that  was  Moura- 


SECOND  PART  OF  RUSSIAN  WAR   423 

viefFs  object.  But  he  completely  failed.  The  1855. 
fire  from  the  batteries  was  so  heavy,  so  well 
directed,  and  so  continuously  sustained,  that  the 
Russians  were  not  only  driven  back,  but  left  behind 
them  an  almost  incredible  number  of  dead  and 
wounded.  While  the  losses  of  the  Turks  did  not 
exceed  thirteen  hundred,  the  number  of  Russians 
buried  by  the  garrison  after  the  fight  was  more 
than  six  thousand,  besides  all  the  killed  and 
wounded  who  were  taken  away  by  their  friends. 
Although  General  Kmety,  a  Hungarian  officer, 
rendered  valuable  assistance,  the  glory  of  that  day 
belongs  to  the  gallant  and  skilful  Williams  of 
Kars.1  But  notwithstanding  all  the  heroism  ol 
its  garrison,  Kars  was  doomed.  No  help  came. 
Omar  Pasha  would  not  stir,  and  Salim  Pasha,  the 
Governor  of  Erzeroum,  remained  there.  The  dis- 
tress of  the  garrison  became  so  dire  that  buried 
animals  were  dug  up  and  eaten.  At  last,  on  the 
28th  of  November,  when  men,  women,  and  children 
were  daily  dying  of  starvation,  the  famished  garri- 
son reluctantly  surrendered.  Gen eral  Williams  met  ^e  meet- 

/-*  i     -ii/r  •     /v>          i  .  -i  i  .  /~t  i  ingbetwee 

General  Mouravieii,  who  said  to  him,  "  General  wmiams 
Williams,  you  have  made  yourself  a  name  in 
history."  The  honours  of  war  were  readily  granted. 
But  the  triumph  of  Russia  was  complete,  and 
the  Turkish  army  in  Anatolia  was  wiped  out.  If 
Kars  had  remained  Russian,  it  \vould  have  been 
better  for  the  happiness  of  mankind.  No  one 
was  more  strongly  impressed  with  the  scandalous 
misgovernment  of  the  Pashas  in  Asiatic  Turkey 
than  the  heroic  Englishman  who  had  risked  his  life 
to  defend  them  against  the  Giaour.  "  It  is  to  be 
feared,"  said  Sir  Fen  wick  Williams,  "  that  the  next 

1  After  the  fight  was  over  he  said  :  "  General  Kmety,  I  thank  you 
in  the  name  of  the  Queen  of  England  for  your  gallantry  and  exertions." 
Kmety  had  some  reason  for  fighting  in  defence  of  Turkey.  He  was  one 
of  the  refugees  whom  the  Sultan  would  not  give  up  to  the  Emperor 
Nicholas. 


424   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 

1855.  time  we  go  to  war  on  account  of  Turkey,  it  will  be 
for  the  spoils."  He  could  not  believe  it  possible 
that  such  iniquities  as  he  had  seen  would  be 
suffered  by  Western  Europe  to  continue.  To  fight 
against  Russia  was  one  thing.  To  fight  for  Turkey 
was  another. 


INDEX 


Abdul   Medjid,  Sultan,  97,  300,   j  Abolitionists  on  sugar  duties,  35- 


310,  325 

Aberdeen,  Earl  of,  foreign  policy 
of,  99,  106 ;  on  the  Pacifico 
affair,  171  ;  Palmerston's 
taunt  against,  174  ;  opposed 
to  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill, 
202,  203,  209;  Gladstone's 
Neapolitan  Letter  to,  231  ; 
Austrian  sympathies  of,  231, 
290  ;  forms  Coalition  Govern- 
ment, 276-277,  279-280  ;  re- 
lations with  Palmerston,  279 ; 
estimate  of  Russell's  import- 
ance, 280, 31 1 ;  South  African 
policy,  289 ;  distrust  of 
Napoleon,  311,  379  ;  attitude 
towards  Eastern  question, 

311,  313,    316,    318,    319; 
attitude     towards     Crimean 
War,  320-322,  328,  332-333, 
341-342, 348,  349 ;  attacks  on, 
for  mismanagement    of   the 
war,  322,  372;   criticism  by 
Roebuck     Committee,    412 ; 
views    on    popular    support, 
330  note ;  loyalty  to  Russell, 
332;     to     Newcastle,     374; 
refusal      to      bargain      with 
Russell  over  Palmerston,  377 
note;    defeat    of,    378-379; 
refusal     to     restore     parish 
church    of    Methlick,    379 ; 
heard  before  Roebuck  Com- 
mittee, 389 ;  Liberal  attitude 
of,  384  ;  estimate  of,  280-281, 
379  ;  Gladstone's  estimate  of, 
380 ;    otherwise    mentioned, 
6,  251,  293,  294,  326,  373, 
409 


36 

Acton,  Lord,  on  history,  10,  19 
Advertisement  duty,  255,  293 
d'Afre,  Monseigneur,  Archbishop 

of  Paris,  95,  104 
Africa,  South — 

Birkenhead,  loss  of  the,  257 
Boers,  see  that  title 
Cape  Colony — 

British  purchase  of,  50 
Convict  transportation   frus- 
trated by,  146-147,  186 
Self-government  of,  delayed 
by      Kaffir      War,      214; 
granted,  289 

Kaffir  War  (1851),  213-214 
Orange  territory,  independence 

forced  on,  289 

Africa,  West,  slave  trade  opposed 
by  British  squadron,  165-166 
Agnew,  Vans,  138 
Airey,  General  Sir  Richard,  order 
of,  at  Balaklava,  363 ;  removal 
of,  demanded,  406-407  ;  cen- 
sured by  Commission  and 
acquitted,  413 
Aland  Islands,  348 
Albert,  Prince,  duelling  dis- 
couraged by,  6  ;  Peelite  sym- 
pathies of,  23 ;  contrasted 
with  Palmerston,  68 ;  the 
Cambridge  election, 69-70;  on 
Frederick  William's  refusal 
of  German  Crown,  109  ;  visit 
to  Ireland,  132  and  note 2 ; 
exhibition  of  1851  due  to, 
207  ;  Palmerston's  interview 
with,  228 ;  army  reserve 
scheme  of,  253 ;  popular 


425 


426   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Albert,  Prince — continued 

attacks  on,  322-323,  330; 
Memorandum  by,  on  Turkish 
guarantees,  326  note  ;  speech 
on  constitutional  govern- 
ment, 409 ;  visit  to  St.  Cloud, 
417-418;  political  position 
and  interests  of,  08-69,  71, 
322-323;  unpopularity  of, 
67,  70,  322-323,  330 ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  150,  218 
note1,  231 

Alexander  II.,  Czar,  391,  421 
Aliens  Removal  Bill,  116 
d'Allonville,  General,  366 
Alma,  battle  of  the,  354-356  and 

note 1 

Althorp,  Lord,  6 
Alton  Locke,  153-154 
Alvanley,  Lord,  3 
America,  see  United  States 
Anaesthetics,  introduction  of,  156 
Anderson,  Lieutenant,  138 
d'Angely,  General  R.  de  St.  Jean, 

401 
Anti-Corn  Law  League,  revival  of, 

252 

Arbitration,  Cobden's  motion  re- 
garding, 135 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  277,  383 
Army — 

Enlistment,     period     of,     75 ; 
Army  Service  Bill  (1855),  390 
Flogging,  restrictions  on,  43 
Militia  Bills  (1852),  241-242,  252 
Arnim,  Count,  343 
Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,  cited,  270 

,  Matthew,  154 

Ashley,  Lord,  see  Shaftesbury 

,  Evelyn,  cited,  100 

Australia — 

Development  of,  181  et  seq. 
Federation  proposal  (1850),  188- 

189 

Gold  discoveries  in,  274-275 
West,  convicts  welcome  in,  183, 

288 
Austria — 

Cracow  annexed  by,  48-51 
Crimean  War,  policy  regarding, 

331,  333-334,  341,  348,  374 
Granville's  attitude  towards,  238 
Haynau,   Marshal,  assault   on, 
230-231 


Austria — continned 

Hungarian  revolt  (1848),  96-97, 

310 

Italy- 
Attitude  of  (1847),  56 
Revolution  in  (1848),  97 
Mather  case,  256-257 
Palmerston's  hatred  of,  100 
d'Autemarre,  General,  400,  402 

Baddeley,  191 

Bagehot,  Walter,  cited,  391 

Bagot,  Bishop,  273-274 

Baillie,  Henry,  143 

Balaklava,  360-368 

Balance  of  power  in  Europe,  310, 
338 

Baltic  Sea,  campaign  in,  336,  337, 
348,  401  note 1 

Bank  Charter  Act  (1844),  77-79 

Bankes,  Mr.,  105 

Barclay's  brewery,  Marshal  Hay- 
na'u  assaulted  at,  230-231 

Baring,  Sir  Francis  (Lord  North- 
brook),  125,  294 

,  Thomas,  78 

Barrot,  Odilon,  90,  95 

Bath,  Lady,  273 

Beaumont,  Lord,  251 

Bedford,  Duke  of,  wealth  of,  119, 
287 ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
105,  171,  263 

Beer,  sugar  allowed  in  brewing,  62 

Belgium,  Palmerston's  attitude 
towards,  165 

Bern,  General,  96,  100 

Bennett,  Rev.  W.  J.  E.,  273-274 

Beritham,  Jeremy,  6,  13 

Bentinck,  General,  355 

,  Lord  George,  opposes  equali- 
sation of  sugar  duties,  36 ; 
applauds  annexation  of  Cra- 
cow, 51 ;  relations  with  Lord 
Stanley,  59,  84 ;  proposal  re- 
garding Irish  railways,  63-64 ; 
supports  Factory  Bill,  73  ,  on 
Jewish  disabilities,  82-84 ; 
Sugar  Committee  under,  119- 
121 ;  death  of,  123 ;  Disraeli 
contrasted  with,  37  ;  estimate 
of,  33-34,  84, 122  note ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  76,  81,  123, 
342 

Beresford,  Major,  382 


INDEX 


427 


Bernal,  Mr.,  243 

Besika  Bay,  demonstration  in, 
demanded  by  Colonel  Rose. 
807  ;  ordered,  313-315 

Bessborough,  Lord,  in  Ireland,  40- 
41  ;  famine  relief  policy  of, 
60  ;  estimate  of,  Go 

Bethell,  Mr.  (Lord  Westbury),  212 

Birkenhead,  loss  of  the,  257-258 

Bishops,  see  under  Churches 

Bizot,  General,  390 

Black  Sea — 

Foreign  ships,restrictionson,313 
Russian  preponderance  in,  dis- 
cussion  regarding,   386,  392, 
395-399 

Blomneld,  Bishop,  supports  Wil- 
berforce,  40  ;  on  Gorham  case, 
192  ;  disapproval  of  Bennett, 
273  ;  Bill  of,  on  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction,  195 

Boers — 

Defeat    of,   by    Sir    H.    Smith 

(1847),  147 

Independence    granted    to,    by 
Sand  River  Convention,  271- 
272 ;     forced    upon    Orange 
territory,  289 
Kaffirs,  attitude  towards,  214 

Bomarsund,  348 

Borrow,  George,  224 

Bosquet,General,  354-355, 366, 369 

Bourqueney,  Count,  343 

Bouverie,  Mr.,  411 

Bright,  John,  opposes  Factory 
Bill,  73  ;  views  on  State-aided 
education, 74;  ontheColonies, 
185 ;  opposes  Ecclesiastical 
Titles  Bill,  200 ;  attitude  to- 
wards Louis  Napoleon,  239  ; 
on  Mr.  Herries,  269 ;  on 
Jewish  disabilities,  287 ;  on 
the  Eastern  question,  312 ;  on 
Palmerston's  Reform  Club 
speech,  336 ;  on  the  Russian 
demands,  343;  on  the  Crimean 
War,  375  ;  appeals  for  peace, 
388,  399 ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 81,  121,  131, 177, 179, 
331 

Brougham,  Lord,  attacks  Palmer- 
ston's Italian  policy,  99,  106  ; 
Austrian  sympathies  of,  99, 
106,  231  ;  views  on  Jewish 


Brougham,  Lord — continued 

disabilities,  119  ;  on  repeal  of 
Navigation  Laws,  127  ;  on  the 
Colonial  system,  142  ;  attitude 
to  Palmerston,  172 ;  on  the 
coup  d'etat,  239 ;  opposes 
abolition  of  transportation, 
289;  estimate  of,  127  ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  145, 177  note2, 
190,  282 

Brown,  Ford  Madox,  155 
— ,  Sir  George,  in  the  Crimea, 
354-355,  372,  400-402,  418 

Browning,  E.  B. — Sonnets  from  the 
Portuguese,  11,  219 ;  Cry  of 
the  Children,  72 

,  R.,  estimate  of,  11-12 

Bruat,  Admiral,  400 

Brunet,  General,  402 

Brunnow,  Baron,  266,  329,  330 

Buccleugh,  Duke  of,  5 

Budgets,  introduction  of,  by  Prime 
Minister,  88  and  note 

Bulgaria,  304 

Buller,  General,  at  the  Alma,  355 

,  Charles,  124 

Bulwer,  Sir  Henry  (Lord  Balling), 
Spanish  marriages  question, 
47  and  notes ;  diplomatic  em- 
broilment, 104-106;  Mather 
case,  257 

Bulwer- Lytton,  Sir  Edward,  op- 
poses income-tax,  294 ;  op- 
poses Foreign  Enlistment  Bill, 
375 ;  supports  Roebuck's 
motion  for  Committee  of  In- 
quiry, 378 ;  proposes  vote  of 
censure  on  Russell,  410 ; 
quoted,  171 

Buol,  Count,  proposal  of,  to  French 
ambassador,  333 ;  proposals 
of,  at  Vienna  Conference,  395- 
396 ;  disclosure  regarding 
Russell,  410  ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 232,  238,  343 

Burgoyue,  Sir  John,  Wellington's 
letter  to,  87,  242;  in  the 
Crimea,  357-359 ;  on  superi- 
ority of  French  arrangements 
for  sick  and  wounded,  389  ; 
recalled,  390 

Burial  in  churches,  297 

Burmah,  Lower,  conquest  of,  269- 
271 


428   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Burns,  Robert,  220 
Butler,  Bishop,  17 

,  Captain,  348 

Butt,  Isaac,  272-273 
Byles,  Serjeant  (Mr.  Justice),  34 
note 

Cambridge,     Duke     of,     in     the 

Crimea,  354,  368,  372 
Cambridge  University — 
Commission  on,  198 
Macaulay  offered  History  Chair 

at,  150 

Prince  Albert's  election  as  Chan- 
cellor of,  69-70 

Campbell,  Lord,  on  Macaulay' s 
defeat,  76 ;  Gorham  case,  192, 
194 ;  views  on  Jewish  dis- 
abilities, 212 ;  opposes  aboli- 
tion of  transportation,  289 
,  Sir  Colin  (Lord  Clyde),  com- 
pared with  Raglan,  335 ;  at 
the  Alma,  354-355 ;  at  Bala- 
klava,  361 

,  Sir  John,  403 

Canada — 

Clergy  Reserves  Bill,  283-286 
Cobden's  view  regarding,  142 
Emigration  to,  9 
Fisheries  dispute  with  America, 

254 

Indemnification  of  rebels  ques- 
tion, 144-145 
Navigation  Laws,  repeal  of,  as 

affecting,  126 
Oregon  question,  2 
Regiment    from,    in    Crimean 

War,  375 
Candia,  304 
Canning,  Lord,  171,  202,  210 

,  George,  26,  164 

Canrobert,  General,  appointed  to 
command  in  the  Crimea,  357  ; 
Raglan  hampered  by,  357, 
360,  369,  404;  spoils  naval 
attack,  359 ;  resigns,  399- 
400 ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
368,  373,  406,  407 
Cape  Colony,  see  under  Africa, 

South 

Cardigan,  Lord,  at  Balaklava,  362 
and  note,  365-367  ;  illness  of, 
373 ;  rank  of,  409 ;  censured  by 
Commission  and  acquitted,413 


Card  well,  Mr.,  ability  of,  277 ; 
resigns  from  Board  of  Trade, 
388  ;  appeals  for  peace,  399  ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  59,  260, 
346 

Cargill,  Captain,  371 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  Chartist  sym- 
pathies of,  113 ;  Life  of 
Sterling,  221  ;  views  on  art 
criticism,  223-224  ;  estimate 
of,  14-16,  222;  otherwise 
mentioned,  100,  153 

Castelbajac,  M.,  329  and  note2 

Castlereagh,  Lord,  4,  99 

Cathcart,  Sir  George,  in  South 
Africa,  271  ;  in  the  Crimea, 
354,  362,  370 

Cavaignac,  General,  95,  234 

Cavour,  Count,  343,  385 

Cecil,  Lord  Robert  (Marquess  of 
Salisbury),  399  and  note, 
413 

Ceylon — 

Committee      on      Torrington's 
treatment  of  rebellion  in,  143, 
144  and  note,  189 
Self-government  impossible  in, 
189  and  note 

Chancery — 

Masters  in,  abolition  of,  258 
Reform,  213 

Changarnier,  General,  234 

Charitable  Trusts  Bill  (1853),  289- 
290 

Charles  Albert,  King  of  Sardinia, 
97-98,  106 

Charlton,  Mr.,  328  note 

Charter,  six  points  of  the,  110 

Chartists,  110-113 

Chloroform,  invention  of,  156 

Cholera — in  Great  Britain  (1854), 
353 ;  in  the  Crimea,  354  and 
note,  371,  403,  417  ;  Palmer- 
ston's  suggestions  regarding, 
297 

Christian  Socialism,  163,  275 

Christopher,  Mr.,  259 

Churches — 
Anglican — 
Bishops — 

Factory  Bill  supported  by, 

73 

Gorham  judgment,  action 
regarding,  193 


INDEX 


429 


Churches — continued 
A  nglican — continued 
Bishops — continued 

Hampden        appointment,    | 

protest  against,  85 
Representation  of,  in  Parlia-  j 

ment,  75  note 1 
Succession  Duty  supported 

by,  295 
Broad     Church     party     and 

Tennyson,  220 
Canadian     Clergy     Reserves 

Bill,  283-280 

Convocation,    revival   of,  at- 
tempted, 195-196 
Gorham  case,  190-195 
Hampden  controversy,  84-85 
Ireland,    in,    Sir   G.    Grey's 
.         view  on,  118 

Manchester,       diocese       of, 

created,  75 

Oxford  Movement, seethattitle 
Ritualism,  273-274 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Act,  see  that 

title 
Roman  Catholic — 

Bishoprics     question     (Papal 

aggression       controversy), 

196-200,  202-204,  206-210 

Emancipation,  65-66  and  note 

Exclusion  of,  from  education 

grant,  74 
Civil  Service — 

Functions  of,  247-248 
Indian,  reform  of,  288,  296 
Reform  (Commission  of  1853), 

295-296,  409-410 
Clanricarde,  Marquess  of,  163 
Clarendon,  Earl  of,  Lord -Lieu- 
tenant of  Ireland  (1847),  56  ; 
in  Ireland,  79,  81,  117,  130 
note,  160-161  ;  suppresses 
John  Mitchel,  116 ;  on  the 
Durham  letter,  199;  Dublin 
bribery  case,  250 ;  defends 
Bishop  Wilberforce,  286  ;  in- 
structions to  Lord  Stratford, 
307-308,  313-314,  325;  de- 
spatches to  Sir  H.  Seymour, 
313,  319 ;  on  Napoleon's 
letter  to  the  Czar,  329 ;  re- 
calls Seymour,  330;  "drift- 
ing towards  war,"  332  ;  sends 
ultimatum  to  Count  Nessel- 


Clarendon,  Earl  of— continued 
rode,  334,  341  ;  his  belief 
in  Austria,  348  ;  declines  to 
join  Russell,  383  ;  complains 
of  Stratford,  396 ;  estimate 
of,  29-30,  65,  160  ;  otherwise 
mentioned,  171,  280,  311-312, 
317,  327,  335,  338,  341,  374 

Clayton-Bui wer  treaty,  179 

Clerk,  Sir  George  Russell,  289 

Coalition  Cabinet,  formation  of, 
276-277,  279-280;  war  party 
in,  311 

Cobden,  Richard,  advises  Peel  to 
dissolve,  22 ;  makes  conti- 
nental tour,  23  ;  refuses  sub- 
ordinate post  (1845),  25 ; 
pecuniary  testimonial  to,  25  ; 
views  on  Wellington's  letter 
to  Burgoyne,  87  -  88  ;  on 
Chartists,  113 ;  moves  re- 
duction of  expenditure  by 
10  millions,  128;  arbitration 
proposals,  135 ;  views  on  the 
Colonial  system,  142,  185 ; 
on  the  Pacifico  question,  173, 
179 ;  proposal  regarding  100 
millions  for  the  Navy,  284 ; 
trade  views  on  foreign  policy, 
312 ;  views  on  the  Eastern 
question,  312 ;  on  position 
of  Turkey,  317,  334;  on 
expulsion  of  Greeks  from 
Turkey,  344;  opposes  Foreign 
Enlistment  Bill,  375  ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  34,  60,  81, 
94,  121,  201,  242,  265,  267, 
287,  410 

Cockburn,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  on 
Deceased  Wife's  Sister  Bill, 
135 ;  speech  in  the  Pacifico 
Debate,  173,  176-177  and 
note  2 ;  on  Ecclesiastical  Titles 
Bill,  208  ;  on  Jewish  dis- 
abilities, 212 

Codrington,  General  Sir  William, 
419-421 

Coffee  duties,  201,  395 

Colonies — 

British  attitude  towards  (1846), 

28 

Development  of,  181  et  seq. 
Disraeli's  views  on,   142,   185, 
254  and  note 


430   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Colonies — continued 
Freedom  of,  142 
Loyalty  of,  142-143 
Protection  in,  152 
Commerce — 

Cobden's  view  of,  312 
Disraeli's  view  of,  62 
Common  Law  Procedure  Act,  258- 

259 
Convict   transportation,    146-147, 

181-186  ;  abolition  of,  288 
Cooper,  Thomas,  113 
Co-operation — 

Christian  Socialist  advocacy  of, 

153 
Rochdale  Society  of  Equitable 

Pioneers,  10 
Corn — 

Price  of  (1847),  71 
Tax  on,  suspended  in  1847,  61 
Corrupt  Practices  Act  (1852),  259 
Cottenham,  Lord,  177  note  2,  190 
County  Courts — 

Extension  of  jurisdiction  of,  258 
Reinstatement  of,  43-44 
Cowley,  Earl,  262,  397 
Cracow,  extinction  of,  48-51 
Cranworth,  Lord,  213,  277,  282 
Crawford,  Sharman,  272 
Creighton,  Bishop,  cited,  111 
Crete,  304 

Crimea,  importance  of,  349 
Crimean  War — 
Beginning  of,  334 
Canadian  regiment,  375 
Commission  on,  413-414 
Committee  on,  see  Roebuck 
Course  of — landing    of   allied 
forces,    354 ;    battle    of   the 
Alma,    354-356    and    note  1 ; 
British   occupation   of  Bala- 
klava,  356  ;  siege  of  Sebas- 
topol  begun,  357  ;  sufferings 
of  the  wounded,  358  ;  naval 
attack,    359 ;    bombardment, 
360;     battle    of    Balaklava, 
360-368  ;  charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade,   365-367  ;  battle  of 
Inkerman,    368-370 ;    killing 
the  wounded,  369  note ;  the 
gale,  370-371  ;  sufferings  of 
the  troops,  371-372 ;  improve- 
ment effected  by  Palmerston, 
389 ;  battle  of  Eupatoria,  391 ; 


Crimean  War — continued 

expedition  to  Kertsch,  400- 
401  ;  the  Malakoff  and  the 
Redan,  401-403 ;  conduct  of 
the  troops,  414 ;  straits  of 
Sebastopol  garrison,  416 ; 
great  bombardment,  418-419  ; 
reduction  of  Sebastopol,  419- 
420 ;  battle  of  Tcheruaya,4l7; 
Kinburn  expedition,  422  ; 
surrender  of  fears,  422-423 
Greeks,  effect  on,  338-339,  344- 

346 

Italian  contingent,  384-385,  417 
Kars,  siege  of,  350,  422-423 
Kuruk-Dere,  Turkish  defeat  at, 

350 

Search,  right  of,  waived,  33!) 
Croker,  John  Wilson,  312  • 

Crystal  Palace,  207 
Currie,  Sir  Frederick,  138 

Dalhousie,  Earl  (afterwards  Mar- 
quess) of,  refuses  to  join 
Russell's  ministry,  25  ;  ac- 
cepts Viceroyalty  of  India, 
86  ;  Indian  administration  of, 
137-141,  269;  conquest  oi 
Lower  Burmah,  269-271  ; 
Nicholas  compared  with,  348 

Danubian  Provinces,  Russian  ad- 
vance to,  302 ;  occupation  of, 
313-314  ;  demand  for  evacua- 
tion of,  proposed,  331,  333  ; 
made,  334,  341 ;  evacuation 
effected,  350 

Dardanelles,  British  and  French 
fleets  sent  through,  320 

Deceased  Wife's  Sister  Bills,  133- 
135 

Defences,  national,  Wellington's 
views  on,  31,  87-89 

Delane,  Mr.,  255,  406 

Democracy,  Derby's  attitude  to- 
wards, 251 

Denison,  Evelyn,  28 

,  Sir  William,  183 

Derby,  14th  Earl  of  (Lord  Stan- 
ley), resignation  of  (1845),  5  ; 
views  on  Opposition,  52 ; 
speech  on  Portuguese  ques- 
tion, 52  ;  relations  with  Ben- 
tinck,  59,  84 ;  on  diplomatic 
relations  with  Rome,  102 ; 


INDEX 


431 


Derby,  14th  Earl  of — continued 
attacks  Russell's  economic 
policy,  125 ;  attacks  Claren- 
don, 160-161  ;  moves  vote  of 
censure  regarding  Pacifico 
affair,  171,  245 ;  views  on 
Colonial  Government,  188 ; 
fails  to  form  a  ministry  (1851), 
201-204  ;  retort  to  Lady  Joce- 
lyn,  204  ;  at  Newmarket,  204- 
206  ;  on  the  coup  d'etat,  239  ; 
forms  his  first  ministry,  244- 
247  ;  attitude  towards  protec- 
tion, 248-249,  251-252,  263 ; 
official  statement,  250;  tribute 
to  Wellington,  261  ;  Chan- 
cellorof  Oxford,  262;  requests 
Lord  Cowley's  proxy,  262 ; 
defeat  and  resignation,  269 ; 
repudiates  Tenant  Right  Bill, 
272 ;  on  Clergy  Reserves 
Bill,  285-286  ;  South  African 
policy,  289 ;  war  policy 
against  Russia,  330, 381,  410  ; 
eulogy  of  Napoleon,  341 ; 
summoned  by  the  Queen, 
380 ;  refuses  to  form  a  Govern- 
ment, 381  ;  estimate  of,  32- 
33,  99,  245 ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 81,  106,  119,  122,  125 
note,  127,  145,  253,  256  note, 
374 

Dliuleep  Singh,  141 

Dickens,  Charles,  estimate  of,  12, 
151,  219-220  ;  opens  Man- 
chester library,  159 ;  David 
Copperfield,  219 

Disraeli,      Benjamin      (Earl     of 

Beaconsfield) — 

Career — speech  on  sugar  duties, 
36 ;  on  Cracow  annexation, 
51 ;  on  Irish  distress,  57-58  ; 
on  State  relief,  62  ;  on  Jewish 
disabilities,  82-83 ;  on  secret 
societies,  103 ;  on  Lord 
Minto's  Italian  mission,  103  ; 
supports  suspension  of  Habeas 
Corpus  Act  in  Ireland,  118 ; 
leader  of  Protectionists,  120, 
125  note,  245  ;  indictment  of 
the  Government,  123 ;  pro- 
posal regarding  local  rates, 
128  ;  in  the  Pacifico  debate, 
178 ;  on  Ecclesiastical  Titles 


Disraeli,      Benjamin      (Earl      of 
Beaconsfield) — continued 

Bill,  200;  on  Palmerston's 
fall,  241  ;  leader  of  the  Com- 
mons, 246 ;  attitude  towards 
Protection,  249-250, 255,  259 ; 
on  the  Fisheries  dispute,  254 ; 
Four  Seats  proposal,  254-255  ; 
first  Budget,  255-256  and 
note ;  plagiarism  of  Thiers, 
261 ;  amendment  to  Villiers' 
Free  Trade  motion,  264 ; 
second  Budget,  266-267 ;  Irish 
party's  negotiations  with,  272 
and  note  2  ;  speech  on  relations 
with  France,  283-284;  votes 
against  Russell's  Jew  Bill, 
351 ;  attitudetowardsCrimean 
War,  351  ;  willing  to  let 
Palmerston  lead  Commons, 
J381  ;  disgusted  at  Derby's 
refusal  to  form  a  Government, 
382,  397  ;  insists  on  Roebuck 
Committee,  386 ;  proposes 
vote  of  censure  on  the  Govern- 
ment, 397  ;  speech  on  French 
rejection  of  Vienna  proposals, 
411;  opposes  Turkish  loan,414 
Ability  of,  as  leader  of  Opposi- 
tion, 103 

Bentinck  contrasted  with,  37 
Colonies,   views   on,  142,  185, 

254  and  note 
Estimate  of,  37-38,  246 
Judaism  of,  82,  213 
Peelite  sympathies  of,  63 
Penetration  of,  16 
Popanilla,  38,  249 
Prince  Albert's  dislike  of,  69 
Otherwise  mentioned,  6,  11,  49, 
60-63,76,81,89,105,106, 121, 
158,  202,  204,  242,  252,  265, 
277,  333,  337,  342,  374,  410 
Disraeli,  Isaac,  37 
Dissenters,  see  Nonconformists 
Doyle,  Sir  Francis,  quoted,258  not? 
Drummoud,  Henry,  129-130,  208 
Duelling,  6-7 

Duffy,  Sir  Charles  Gavan,  272,  278 
Dulac,  419 
Duncan,  Lord,  159 
Dundas,  Vice-Admiral,  sent  into 
the  Black  Sea,  342  ;  refuses 
demonstration  in  Besika  Bay, 


432   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Dundas,  Vice-Admiral — continued 
307  ;  on  instructions  makes 
the  demonstration,  313-315 ; 
naval  attack  on  Sevastopol, 
359;  recalled,  375-376;  re- 
fuses responsibility  for  trans- 
port, 412 

Dupont,  M.,  94 

Durham,  Earl  of,  124,  144 

Durham  Letter  of  Lord  John 
Russell,  198-199 

Ecclesiastical  Titles  Act,  200,  202- 
204,  206-210;    effect  of  the 
Act  in  Ireland,  260 ;    Aber- 
deen's estimate  of,  281,  333 
Education — 

Elementary,  in  1846,  8 
Russell's  policy  regarding,  74 ; 

his  Bill,  290 

Edwardes,  Sir  Herbert,  138 
Eglinton,Earl  of,102-103  and  note1 
Egypt,  Czar's  proposal  regarding 

(1853),  304 

Electoral  reform,  259,  353 
Elgin,  Earl  of,  144 
Ellenborough,  Earl  of,  20 
Elliott,  Ebenezer,  249-250 
Emigration,  9,  64-65 
Engineers'  strike  (1852),  275 
England,  Sir  Richard,  372 
Epirus,  rebellion  in  (1854),  339 
Escourt,  General,  406 
Euge'nie,  Empress,  306,  392 
Eupatoria,  battle  of,  391 
Evans,  Sir  de  Lacy,  354,  372 
Eversley,  Viscount,  quoted,  114, 

353 

Ewart,  William,  159 
Exhibition  of  1851,  207 
Eyre,  General,  403 

Factories,  smoke  consumption  by, 
298 

Factory  Act  (1847),  71-74 

Factory  Act  Amendment  Bill 
(1850),  161-162;  Act,  pro- 
visions regarding  children 
(1853),  289^  297 

Ferdinand  II.,  King  of  Naples 
("Bomba"),  revolution 
against,  98  ;  tyranny  of,  231- 
232  ;  Palmerston's  Memoran- 
dum regarding,  260  note  2 


Fialin  (Persigny),  234 
Fielden,  Mr.,  71 
Filangieri,  General,  98 
Financial  panic  (1847),  77-79 
Finlay,  Mr.,  Greek  grievances  of, 

166-168  and  note 

Foreign  Enlistment  Act(1854), 375 
Forster,  William   Edward,   work 

of,  in  Irish  famine,  60  note 
Fox,  Mr.,  179 
France — 

Alliance  with  (1854),  343 
Coup  d'etat,  225,  233-236 
Crimean  War,  see  that  title 
Dislike  of  England  (1848),  94 
Disraeli's     embittering    speech 

regarding,  283-284 
Estrangement  from — on  Spanish 
marriages   question,    48 ;    by 
alliance  with  Napoleon  III., 
341 
Mediation  of,  in  Pacifico  affair, 

168-169 

National  workshops,  94,  95 
Position  of,  in  1846,  27 
Queen  Victoria's  visit  to  (1855), 

418 
Revolution     of     1848,    89-95 ; 

Disraeli's  views  on,  103 
Rome  occupied  by  (1849),  98, 101 
Russia,  hostilities  against  (1853), 

307  (see  also  Crimean  War) 
Second  Empire  established,  265- 

266  and  note 
Franchise — 
"  Fancy,"  331 
King,  Locke,  proposal  of  (1851), 

201 

Francis  Joseph,  Emperor,  96,  374 
Frederick   William   of  Prussia — 
seeks     refuge     in    England, 
96  ;  declines  Crown  of  Ger- 
many, 108 

Free  Libraries  Act  (1850),  159 
Free  Trade,  1,  20,  264 
Friends,    Society  of,    deputation 
from,  to  the  Czar,  328  and  note 
Frost,  John,  113 

Froude,  James  Anthony,  149,  224 
,  Richard  Hurrell,  149 

Galicia,  disturbances  in,  48 

Gaskell,  Mrs.,  152 

Geneste,  Lieutenant,  401  note1 


INDEX 


433 


Germany  (see  also  Prussia),  soldiers 
from,  enlisted  under  Foreign 
Enlistment  Act,  375 

Gibson,  Milner,  on  Ecclesiastical 
Titles  Bill,  210;  on  adver- 
tisement duty,  255,  293 ;  on 
the  Eastern  question,  312 ; 
joined  by  Peelites  in  de- 
nouncing the  war,  399 

Girardin,  Emile  de,  90 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  elected  for 
Oxford  University,  76 ;  on 
Jewish  disabilities,  82 ;  on 
diplomatic  relations  with 
Rome,  103 ;  on  Navigation 
laws,  126  ;  opposes  Deceased 
Wife's  Sister  Bill,  135;  on 
Canadian  rebels  question, 
145  ;  on  opposition  to  slave- 
trade  on  African  coast,  165  ; 
speech  in  Pacifico  debate,  168 
note,  175-176 ;  on  Colonial 
government  question,  186, 
188 ;  Gorham  case,  194 ; 
opposes  Oxford  Commission, 
198 ;  declines  to  join  Derby 
(1851),  202,  249 ;  on  Ecclesi- 
astical Titles  Bill,  209  ; 
Italian  sympathies  of,  231, 
385  ;  Neapolitan  Letter  to 
Lord  Aberdeen,  231  ;  on  the 
Four  Seats  proposal,  255  ;  on 
Disraeli's  Budget  and  speech, 
268-269;  first  Budget,  290- 
295  ;  energy  of,  291  ;  opposi- 
tion to  Palmerston,  291  ; 
views  on  treaties,  303-304 ; 
on  the  Eastern  question,  311, 
315  ;  first  war  Budget,  337  ; 
second  war  Budget,  345 ; 
work  for  Oxford  reform, 
352  ;  views  on  Roebuck  Com- 
mittee, 377,  387  ;  eulogy  on 
Lord  Aberdeen,  380  ;  declines 
to  join  Derby  (1856),  381  ; 
resigns  on  Roebuck  Com- 
mittee, 387  ;  views  on  taxa- 
tion and  protection,  395  ; 
disclaims  further  responsi- 
bility for  the  war,  397  ;  op- 
poses Turkish  loan,  414 ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  5,  16, 
68,  62,  164,  221,  247,  265, 
277,  282,  327,  377,  384,  408 
VOL.  I 


Goderich,  Lord  (Marquess  of 
Ripon),  145,  153  and  note, 
245-246,  275 

Godwin,  General,  271 

Gold,  depreciation  of,  in  1852, 
274 

Gordon,  General,  in  the  Crimea, 
401  note  2 

Gorgey,  General,  97 

Gorham  case,  190-195 

Gortschakoff,  Prince  Alexander, 
385,  392  and  note 

,  Prince  Michael,   369,  416, 

420 

Gough,  Lord,  138-140 

Goulburn,  Mr.,  letter  of,  on  Irish 
distress,  42  ;  "a  weird  Sibyl," 
268  ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
59,  135 

Graham,  Sir  James,  friendship  of, 
for  Peel,  4  ;  Factory  Act  of 
1844,  161  ;  fears  regarding 
Factory  Bill  of  1847,  72  ;  re- 
fuses Viceroyalty  of  India, 
86  ;  on  Encumbered  Estates 
Act,  118  ;  on  repeal  of  Navi- 
gation Laws,  126  ;  in  Pacifico 
debate,  173,  176  and  note ; 
speech  on  Louis  Napoleon, 
283-284 ;  speech  at  Reform 
Club  dinner,  336  ;  resigns  on 
Roebuck  Committee,  387  ; 
denounces  the  war,  399  ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  121, 
125,  209,  245,  264,  268,  277, 
311 

Granby,  Marquess  of  (6th  Duke  of 
Rutland),  leader  of  Protec- 
tionists, 120 ;  retires  in  favour 
of  Disraeli,  125  note  ',  on  Peel, 
264  ;  on  the  Eastern  question, 
312 ;  on  the  Russian  demands, 
343 

Grant,  Robert,  83 

Granville,  Earl,  succeeds  Palmer- 
ston at  the  Foreign  Office, 
235  ;  his  success,  237-238  ; 
supports  Aberdeen  on  the 
Eastern  question,  312;  vacates 
presidency  of  the  Council  for 
Russell,  347  ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 77,  277 

Great  nations,  Disraeli's  views  on, 
51 

2F 


434   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Greece — 

Blockade  of  Piraeus,  166 
Crimean  War  as  affecting,  338- 

339,  344-346 
I'acifico  question,  166-179 

Greg,  W.  R. — Creed  of  Christen- 
dom, 221 

Greville,  Charles — 

Cited  —  on  Lord  J.  Russell's 
Budget  speech,  89 ;  on  Lord 
Stanley's  failure  to  form  a 
ministry,  202  ;  on  Lord  Cow- 
ley's  proxy,  262  ;  on  Disraeli's 
sugar  proposals,  267  ;  on 
Bishop  .Jackson's  appoint- 
ment, 282  ;  on  Turkey's 
popularity  in  England,  330 
Quoted — on  Lord  Stanley,  33  ; 
on  the  Russell  Government, 
38-39 ;  on  the  Spanish  mar- 
riages question,  49  ;  on  the 
army,  75  ;  on  the  autumn 
session  (1847),  79 ;  on  Lans- 
downe's  indignation  with 
Palmerston,  105  ;  on  Ben- 
tinck's  racing  transactions, 
122  note ;  on  the  Pacifico 
question,  170 ;  on  the  Gor- 
ham  case,  192-193  ;  on  Bishop 
Blomiield's  Bill,  195  ;  on 
Lord  Stanley's  diversions, 
204  -  206  ;  on  Palmerston's 
attitude  to  Granville,  237  ;  on 
Gran  ville'  s  attitude  to  Austria, 
238;  on  the  Coalition  Cabinet, 
278 ;  on  Disraeli's  speech  on 
relations  with  France,  284 ; 
on  Stratford's  desire  for  peace, 
329  ;  on  war  fever  in  England, 
334 

Grey,  2nd  Earl,  26 

,  3rd  Earl,  declines  to  join 

Russell's  Government  (1845), 
23  and  note ;  urges  reform 
of  enlistment  period,  75-76  ; 
views  on  Palmerston's  Spanish 
embroilment,  105  ;  attacked 
by  Beutinck,  121-122 ;  views 
on  South  African  Colonies, 
147 ;  on  convict  transporta- 
tion, 183,  289 ;  Colonial  policy 
of,  214-215 ;  on  the  coup  d'etat, 
239 ;  supports  Clergy  Reserves 
Bill,  285;  on  the  Eastern  ques- 


Grey,  3rd  Earl — continued 

tion,  312  ;  speech  against  in- 
terference between  Russia  and 
Turkey,  330  ;  on  defending 
a  phantasm,  332  ;  protests 
against  the  war,  398  ;  esti- 
mate of,  28,  121,  143,  184, 
215  ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
39,  45,  48,  171,  187-189, 
243 

,  Sir  George,  supports  Factory 

Bill  (1847),  72  ;  Irish  Bill  of, 
79-80  ;  proclamation  to  Char- 
tists, 111  ;  speech  on  Treason 
Felony  Act,  114-115 ;  sup- 
ports Deceased  Wife's  Sister 
Bill,  135  ;  compromise  on 
Factory  Act  Amendment  Bill, 
162  ;  Colonial  Secretary,  347 ; 
declines  to  join  Russell,  383  ; 
prohibits  meetings  in  London 
parks,  416 ;  estimate  of,  29, 
115  ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
230,  243,  260,  279,  384, 
387 

,  Sir  George  (Governor  of  Nexv 

Zealand),  253  and  note* 

Gros,  Baron,  168-169 

Grosvenor,  Lord  Robert  (Lord 
Ebury),  415-416 

Grote,  George,  13-14,  18 

Guizot,  policy  of,  regarding  the 
Spanish  marriages,  45  -  47  ; 
exile  of,  91,  108,  165;  op- 
posed to  political  reform,  103 ; 
estimate  of,  91-92  ;  otherwise 
mentioned,  3,  27,  90 

Haileybury  School,  288 

Halifax,  Viscount,  see  Wood,  Sir 

Charles 

Hall,  Sir  Benjamin,  240 
Hamelin,  Admiral,  357,  359 
Hamilton,  Lord  Claud,  312 
Hampdeu,  Dr.  (Bishop  of  Here- 
ford), controversy  regarding, 
84-85  ;  alleged  heresy  of,  148 
note 

Haugo,  outrage  at,  401  note l 
Harcourt,  Sir  William,  80  note 
Hardinge,  Lord,  Peel's  letter  to, 
1,  2  ;  Indian  policy  of,  85,  86 
and  note,  137  ;  his  estimate  of 
Gough,  140  ;  Commander-in- 


INDEX 


435 


Hardinge,  Lord — continued 

Chief,  261  ;  refuses  Lucan  a 
court  -  martial,  367  note  2  ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  335, 
407,  408 

Hare,  Julius,  221 

Harrow  School,  279 

Harrowby,  Earl  of,  239 

Hatherley,  Lord,  see  Wood,  Page 

Hawes,  Mr.,  121 

Haynau,  Marshal,  97,  230-231 

Health  of  Towns  Act  (1848),  9, 
153 

Herbert,  Sidney,  on  the  Gorham 
case,  194  ;  on  Ecclesiastical 
Titles  Bill,  209;  on  Protec- 
tionist attacks  upon  Peel, 
264-265  ;  persuades  Miss 
Nightingale  to  go  to  the 
Crimea,  358 ;  refuses  office 
under  Derby,  381  ;  Colonial 
Secretary,  384 ;  resigns  on 
Roebuck  Committee,  387  ; 
denounces  the  war,  399  ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  5,  16, 
25,  277,  373 

Herbillon,  General,  417 

Herries,  Mr.,  on  sugar  duties, 
121  ;  on  Canadian  rebels 
question,  145  ;  President  of 
the  Board  of  Control,  245  ; 
Protectionist  leanings  of,  259 ; 
"  Governor  of  our  Indian  pos- 
sessions," 269 

d'Hilliers,  General  Baraguay, 
302 

History,  province  of,  19-21 

Holland,  loan  by,  to  Russia  guar- 
anteed by  Great  Britain,  50 

Home  Secretary,  position  of,  re- 
garding Ireland,  80  and  note 

Hook,  Dean,  cited,  135 

Hope-Scott,  James,  193 

Horsman,  Mr.,  273 

Hospitals,  reform  of,  157 

Houghton,  Lord,  see  Milnes, 
Monckton 

House  tax,  200,  206,  267-268 

Howley,  Archbishop,  148 

Hudson,  George,  63-64  and  note 

Hume,  David,  on  reason,  221 

,  Joseph,   action  of,  against 

duelling,  7 ;  on  the  Holland 
loan  guarantee,  50  ;  Chartist 


Hume,  Joseph — continued 

sympathies  of,  113  ;  efforts 
at  reform,  113,  158  ;  supports 
suspension  of  Habeas  Corpus 
Act  in  Ireland,  118 ;  on 
financial  agitation,  77  ;  death 
of,  390-391 ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 64,  81,  89,  121,  201, 
287 
Hungary,  revolution  in  (1848), 

96-97,  310 
Hunt,  Holman,  155 
Hunter,  Sir  William,  139 
Hutt,  Sir  William,  166  and  note 

India — 

Chillianwallah,  battle   of,  139, 

140 

Civil  Service  reform,  287 
Dalhousie's  policy  in,  137-141, 

269 

East  India  Company,  288 
Goojerat,  battle  of,  140,  141 
Hardiuge's  policy  in,  85-86  and 

note,  137 

Punjab — war  with,  and  annexa- 
tion of  (1848-1849),  138-141 
Scinde,  conquest  of,  139-140 
Sikh  wars,  137-140 
Inglis,  Sir  Robert,  198,  213 
Inhabited  house  duty,  see  House 

Tax 

Inkerman,  battle  of,  368-370 
Insane,  treatment  of  the — 
Improvement  in,  156 
Wood's    proposed    grant-in-aid 
for  pauper  lunatics,  201,  206 
Ireland — 

Chief  Secretary   for,   constitu- 
tional position  of,  80  note 
Church    establishment  in,   Sir 

G.  Grey's  view  on,  118 
Clarendon  bribery  case,  250 
Coercion — 

Number  of   Acts    since  the 

Union,  131 

Peel's  Bill,  22,  40,  80 
Russell's    Bills    (1846),    40; 

(1847),  79-80 
Condition  of,  in  1847,  57 ;  in 

1848,  87 

Crime  in  (1847),  nature  of,  58 
Dolly's  Brae  disturbance,  132, 
160 


436   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Ireland — continued 

Durham  Letter,  effect  of,  199 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  atti- 
tude towards,  207 ;  effect  of 

the  Act,  260 

Emigration  from,  9,  64-65 
Encumbered  Estates  Bill  (1848), 

118;  commissioners  appointed 

under  the  Act,  130 
English    attitude    towards,    in 

1849,  130 
Famine  in  (1846-48),  41,  57  et 

seq. ,   87 ;    effect  on   English 

labour  market,  9 
Habeas  Corpus  Act,  suspension 

of  (1848),  117  ;  (1849),  130 
Income  tax — 

Disraeli's  proposal  regarding, 
207 

Gladstone's  extension  of  in- 
come tax  to,  62,  292-29.3 
Land  tenure  in — Tenant  Right 

Bill  (1852),  272-273 
Lord     Lieutenancy,     proposed 

abolition  of,  160 
Magistrates  restored  by  Russell 

in  1846,  41  note 

Papal  interference,  attitude  to- 
wards, 55 
Peasantry     in,      condition     of 

(1847),  57 
Poor  Law  of  (1847),  62  ;  (1849), 

131 
Population  of,  in  1847  and  1903, 

64 

Railways    in — Bentinck's    pro- 
posal, 63 

Reform  Bill  (1850),  159 
Relief  works  in  (1847),  41-42, 

60 
Royal  visit  to  (1849),  132  and 

note2 
Stagnation   of   employment  in 

(1846),  42 
Telegraph    cable    as    affecting 

administration  of,  225 
Treason  Felony  Act  (1848),  114- 

115 

Irish  party,  see  under  Parliament 
Isabella,  Queen  of  Spain,  45-47, 

49,  104 
Italy- 
Art  of,   Ruskin's    attitude    to- 
wards, 222-223 


Italy — continued 
Austria — 

Attitude  towards  (1847),  55 

Revolution  against  (1848-49), 

97-98 
Crimean  War,  contingent  sent 

to,  384-386,  417 
Minto,  Earl  of,  in,  54-56, 102,103 
Palmerston's  attitude  towards, 

94,  99-100,  107,  384,  385 
Position  of,  in  1847,  54-65 

Jackson,  Bishop,  282 
Jenner-Fust,  Sir  Herbert  (Dean  of 

the  Arches),  191 
Jerusalem,  rival  churches  at,  300, 

302,  308  and  note 2 
Jervis,  Sir  John,  111,  177  note* 
Jews — 

Disabilities  of — 

Bills  for  removal  of,  81-82, 
119,  132-133,  212,  287,  351 
Roman    Catholic    disabilities 
compared  with  Jewish,  211 
Influence  of,  133 
Jocelyn,  Lady,  204 
"John  Doe,"  258  note3 
Jones,  Edward  Burne,  155 

,  Ernest,  113 

,  Sir  Harry,  390 

Jowett,  Rev.  Benjamin,  221 

Kaffir  War  (1851),  213-214 

Kainardji,  Treaty  of,  303,313,318, 
340 

Kara,  surrender  of,  422-423 

Kean,  Charles,  224 

Kelly,  Sir  Fitzroy,  259 

Kelvin,  Lord,  20 

Kenuington  Common  mass  meet- 
ing, 110-112 

Keogh,  William,  272,  278 

Kertsch,  expedition  to,  400-401 

Kiuburn,  expedition  to,  422 

King,  Locke,  201 

Kinglake — 

Cited — on  Newcastle's  despatch, 

349 

Quoted — on  origin  of  Crimean 
War,  300,  302;  on  settle- 
ment of  the  Holy  Places 
dispute,  308-309  note 

Kingsley,Rev.Charles,113,153-154 

Klapka,  General,  97 


INDEX 


437 


Kmety,  General,  423  and  note 
Knight- Bruce,    Vice- Chancellor, 

192,  213 

Knowles,  Sheridan,  218  note l 
Roller,  Baron,  230 
Korniloff,  Admiral,  358,  360 
Kossuth,   Louis,   Hungarian   dic- 
tator, 96  ;   flight  to  Turkey, 
97;    visit  to   England,    100, 
232 ;    popularity  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 310 

Labouchere,  Mr.  (Lord  Taunton), 

40  and  note  2,  126,  170,  243 
Labouring  classes — • 
Condition  of,  in  1842,  7 
Trade  Unions,  see  that  title 
Upper  class  attitude  towards,  10 
Lahitte,  General,  169 
Laing,  Mr.,  414 
Lake,  Colonel,  422 
La  Marmora,   General,   384-385, 

417 

Lamartine,  91,  94,  115 
Lambert,  Commodore,  270 
Lamennais,  94 

Langdale,  Lord,  1 91  and  note  2, 192 
Lansdowne,  Marquess  of,  Bill  of, 
for  authorisation  of  diplo- 
matic relations  with  Rome, 
102-103  ;  views  on  Palmer- 
ston's  Spanish  embroilment, 
105 ;  on  Neapolitan  atrocities, 
125;  on  Pacifico  affair,  171;  on 
Durham  Letter,  199  ;  refuses 
the  Queen's  Commission,  276, 
382 ;  in  Coalition  Cabinet, 
277 ;  declines  to  join  Russell, 
383  ;  estimate  of,  29  ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  39, 195,  202, 
209,  233,  243,  263,  311,  382 
Lavalette,  M.  de,  302 
Law  reform — 

Chancery    appeals,     additional 

justices  for,  213 
Common    Law   Procedure  Act 

(1852),  258-259 
Elections,  purification  of,  259, 

353 

Usury  laws,  repeal  of,  353 
Winter  Assizes,  296 
Witnesses,     parties     to     civil 

actions  admitted  as,  213 
Lawrence,  Sir  Henry,  139,  141 


Lawrence,  Sir  John,  139 

Layard,  Major,  43 
— ,  Sir  Henry,  316,  413  note 

Leigh,  Pembertou  (Lord  Kings- 
down),  192 

Le  Roy,  Jacques,  see  St.  Arnaud 

Lewis,  Sir  George  Cornewall,  at 
the  Exchequer,  388 ;  first 
Budget,  394-395  ;  otherwise 
mentioned,  260,  399 

Lhuys,  Drouyn  de,  action  in  the 
Pacifico  affair,  169  ;  demands 
evacuation  of  Danubian  pro- 
vinces, 334,  341  ;  resigns, 
396 ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
340,  410 

Liberal,  early  use  of  term,  384, 
388 

Liberal  party,  Colonial  policy  of, 
184 

Limited  Liability  Act  (1855),  415 

Liprandi,  General,  366,  367,  417 

Locke,  Mr.,  163 

Lockhart,  J.  G.,  cited,  3-4 

London,  Treaty  of  (1852),  269 

Lonsdale,  Earl  of,  245 

Lord  Chancellor,  retiring  pension 
of,  282 ;  position  of,  in  the 
House,  286  note l 

Louis  Napoleon,  see  Napoleon  III. 

Philippe,    fall    of,   89  -  90  ; 

exile  of,  91,  101,  108  ;  death 
of,  228;  otherwise  mentioned, 
88,  103,  393 

Loyd,  Jones  (Lord  Overstone),  78 

Lucan,  Earl  of,  at  the  Alma,  354; 
at  Balaklava,  362  and  note- 
367  5  rank  of,  409  ;  censured 
by  Commission  and  acquitted, 
413 

Lucas,  Frederick,  272,  278 

Lushington,  Dr.,  192 

Lyndhurst,  Lord,  Bentinck's 
attack  on,  34 ;  on  repeal 
of  Navigation  Laws,  1 27 ; 
Marriage  Bill  of,  134 ;  on 
Canadian  rebels  question, 
145  ;  against  moderation  to- 
wards Russia,  347 ;  otherwise 
mentioned,  123,  214,  248 
note,  282 

Lyons,  Rear-Admiral  Sir  Edmund, 
at  the  Crimean  War,  356,359, 
372,  376,  400 


438   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Lyttelton,  Lord,  398 

Lytton,  Bulwer,  see  Bulwer-Lytton 

Lyveden,  Lord,  see  Smith,  Vernon 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  speech  of,  on 
Russell's  education  proposals, 
74 ;  defeat  of,  at  Edinburgh, 
76  ;  History,  149-151  ;  refuses 
to  join  the  Cabinet,  235  ;  on 
Derby's  Militia  Bill,  252  ;  re- 
elected,  260 ;  supports  Wood's 
India  Bill,  and  defeats  Lord 
Hotham's  Bill  for  exclusion 
of  Master  of  the  Rolls,  288  ; 
on  Palmerston's  speech  at 
Reform  Club  dinner,  336 
note ;  estimate  of,  30  ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  124,  133,  267 

M'Hale,  Dr.,  56 

Machinery,  effect  of  introduction 
of,  7-8 

Macmahon,  Marshal,  419 

M'Neill,  Sir  John,  413 

Macready,  224 

Maitland,  Sir  Thomas,  52 

Malakoff,  attack  on  the,  401-402  ; 
September  attack  and  capture, 
418-419 

Malmesbury,  Earl  of,  succeeds 
Lord  Granville,  246  ;  letter 
on  Louis  Napoleon,  253  ;  the 
Mather  case,  256-257;  on 
Disraeli's  Budget  speech, 
256  note;  eulogy  on  Louis 
Napoleon,  265 ;  on  Russian 
occupation  of  Danubian  pro- 
vinces, 317 ;  estimate  of,  246; 
Foreign  Office  estimate  of, 
269 ;  unreliability  of  Memoirs 
of,  305  note ;  cited,  351,  382  ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  32,  239, 
254  note 

Malt  tax,  267-268,  345 

Maltby,  Dr.,  Bishop  of  Durham, 
198 

Manchester — 

Diocese  of,  created  (1847),  75 
Free  library  at,  opening  of,  159 

Manin,  Daniele,  97 

Manners,  Lord  John  (7th  Duke  of 
Rutland),  supports  Factory 
Act  Amendment  Bill,  162 ; 
on  Clergy  Reserves  Bill,  285  ; 
estimate  of,  247 


Manning,  Cardinal,  193 

Mansel,  Rev.  II.  L.,  141 

Martin,  Sir  Theodore,  cited,  68, 
80  ;  quoted,  228 

Martineau,  Dr.,  19 
— ,  Harriet,  13,  152 

Mather,  Mr.,  256-257 

Maule,  Fox,  243 

Maupas,  de,  234 

Maurice,  Rev.  Frederick  Denison, 
220 

Maynooth,  260  and  note 

Mayran,  General,  402 

Melbourne,  Viscount,  Hampden's 
appointment  by,  84 ;  death 
of,  123;  estimate  of,  23-24, 
123-124 

Mentschikoff,  Prince,  at  Constan- 
tinople, 307-309;  in  the 
Crimean  War,  354-355,  358, 
360,  416 

Merewether,  Dr.,  85 

Merimee,  Prosper,  239 

Merivale,  Herman,  143 

Messina,  Neapolitan  atrocities  at, 
98,  108,  126 

Metropolitan  Board  of  Works,  415 

Metternich,  Prince,  exile  of,  96r 
108,  165 ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 27,  48,  99 

Meyendorf,  Baron,  318 

Michael,  Grand  Duke,  368 

Militia  Bill  (1852),  241-242,  252 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  Bank  Charter 
Act  opposed  by,  78 ;  Prin- 
ciples of  Political  Economy, 
152-153  ;  estimate  of,  13 

Millais,  Sir  John,  155 

Milnes,  Monckton  (Lord  Hough- 
ton),  11,  241,  317 

Minorities,  protection  of,  331 

Minto,  Earl  of,  Italian  mission  of, 
54-56, 102,  103  ;  alleged  fore- 
knowledge of  Roman  Catholic 
bishoprics  policy,  199  ;  on  in- 
trigues against  Palmerston, 
263 

Mitchel,  John,  115-116 

Mob  law,  415-416 

Moldavia,  see  Danubian  Pro- 
vinces 

Mole',  Count,  90 

Molesworth,  Sir  William,  on 
Pacifico  question,  173 ;  on 


INDEX 


439 


Molesworth,  Sir  Wm. — continued 
Colonial  government,  182- 
183,  187  ;  opposes  Aliens  Re- 
moval Bill,  117 ;  opposes  New 
Zealand  Constitution  Bill, 
254 ;  in  Coalition  Cabinet, 
277 ;  on  Clergy  Reserves  Bill, 
285 ;  supports  Aberdeen  on 
the  Eastern  question,  312 ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  13, 143, 
388,  399 

Monsell,  Mr.  (Lord  Emly),  278 

Montalembert,  239,  398 

Morning  Post,  330 

Moray,  de,  234 

Morris,  General,  366 

,  Mowbray,  255 

Mouravieff,  General,  422-423 

Miiller,  Max,  154 

Murray,  Dr.,  56 

Musgrave,  Archbishop,  192 

Naas,  Lord  (Earl  of  Mayo),  250 
Nakhimoff,  Admiral,  324,  418 
Napier,  General  Sir  Charles,  139 

,  Admiral  Sir  Charles,  336, 

337,  348 

— ,  Sir  Joseph,  272 
Napoleon  III.  (Louis  Napoleon 
Bonaparte),  elected  to  the 
National  Assembly,  94 ; 
elected  President,  95 ;  en- 
rolled as  special  constable 
against  Chartists,  112 ;  per- 
petrates the  coup  d'etat,  233- 
236 ;  English  sympathisers 
with,  238-239;  "Saviour  of 
Society,"  239 ;  Malmesbury's 
letter  on,  253  ;  assumes  Im- 
perial title,  265-2(56  and  note  ; 
influence  of,  299 ;  presses  claim 
of  Latin  Church  at  Jerusalem, 
300,  302  ;  marriage  of,  306 ; 
hostility  to  Russia,  306,  315, 
320,  326  ;  Aberdeen's  distrust 
of,  311,  379 ;  drafts  the  Vienna 
Note,  315  ;  proposal  regard- 
ing Russian  fleet,  325-326  ; 
letter  to  the  Czar,  329 ;  dis- 
advantages of  alliance  with, 
341,  357  ;  visit  to  the  Queen, 
392  -  393  ;  proposes  visiting 
the  Crimea,  393  ;  determined 
on  continuance  of  war,  396  ; 


Napoleon  III. — continued 

the  Queen's  visit  to,  418 ; 
plans  opposed  by  Pelissier, 
420 ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
104,  338 

,  Prince,  354,  394 

Nasmyth,  Lieutenant,  348 

National  Debt,  206 

Navigation  Laws,  repeal  of,  126- 
128 ;  repeal  extended  to 
coasting  trade,  353 

Navvy,  origin  of  term,  8 

Nesselrode,  Count,  on  Hungarian 
revolution,  96 ;  on  Pacifico 
affair,  169  ;  on  British  atti- 
tude towards  Louis  Napoleon, 
238 ;  negotiations  regarding 
French  action  in  the  East, 
302 ;  on  occupation  of  Dan- 
ubian  Provinces,  314 ;  re- 
fuses modifications  in  Vienna 
Note,  318 ;  on  intentions  of 
Russian  fleet,  326  ;  ultimatum 
to.  334,  341 ;  ability  of,  300, 
328 

New  South  Wales — 

Convict  transportation  opposed 

by,  185-186 
Development  of,  181-182 

New  Zealand,  constitution  of,  253- 
254 

Newcastle,  Duke  of,  Secretary  of 
State  for  War,  346  ;  despatch 
on  invasion  of  the  Crimea, 
349;  attacks  on,  372,  374; 
removal  of,  desired  by  Russell, 
373,  377  note;  retires,  384, 
406;  visits  Crimea,  384; 
heard  before  Roebuck  Com- 
mittee, 389  ;  his  attacks  on 
Ilaglan,  406-407 ;  otherwise 
mentioned,  25,  210,  277,  285, 
311,  327 

Newdigate,  Mr.,  52 

Newfoundland  Fisheries  dispute 
(1852),  254 

Newman,  Dr.,  secession  of,  16, 
84,  148  ;  views  on  creation  of 
Roman  Catholic  bishoprics, 
197  ;  Lectures  on  the  Present 
Position  of  Catholics  in  Eng- 
land, 211 

Nicholas,  Emperor  (see  also  Russia), 
associated  with  extinction  of 


440   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Nicholas,  Emperor — continued 
Cracow,  49 ;  interferes  in 
Hungarian  revolution,  96, 
810 ;  despatch  on  Louis 
Napoleon,  238 ;  overtures  to 
Great  Britain,  303  -  304  ; 
Russell's  reception  of  them, 
305-306 ;  three  enemies  of, 
306  ;  occupies  Dauuhian  Pro- 
vinces, 313-314;  deputation 
to,  from  Society  of  Friends, 
328  and  note ;  Napoleon's 
letter  to,  329  ;  reception  of 
British  and  French  ultimatum, 
334 ;  possibly  effective  com- 
bination against,  341  ;  appeal 
to  his  subjects,  344 ;  death 
of,  391  and  note ',  influence 
of,  299, 300 :  character  of,  301 

,  Grand  Duke,  368 

Niel,  General,  390,  402 

Nightingale,  Miss  Florence,  358 

Nolan,  Captain,  363-366 

Nonconformists — 

Education  policy  of  Lord  Russell 

disapproved  by,  74 
Universities,     exclusion     from, 
199;  disabilities  at  Oxford,  352 

Norcott,  Major,  355 

Normanby,  Marquess  of,  attitude 
of,  towards  French  Opposi- 
tion, 47 ;  in  the  coup  d'etat, 
234  -  236  ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 46,  100,  169 

Northcote,  Sir  Stafford  (Earl  of 
Iddesleigh),  Twenty  Years  of 
Financial  Policy  by,  5  and  note, 
294 ;  on  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission, 296  and  note,  410 

Northumberland,  Duke  of,  378 
note,  382 

Novara,  battle  of,  98 

O'Brien,  Smith,  114-117 

,  Stafford  (Augustus  Stafford), 

378  and  note,  382 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  attitude  of, 
towards  duelling,  6 ;  re-in- 
statement  of,  by  Russell,  41 
note  ;  death  of,  65  ;  estimate 
of,  65-66 ;  cited,  55  ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  23,  60 

,  John,  80 

O'Connor,  Feargus,  110,  112-113 


Omar  Pasha,  391,  422-423 
Orange  territory,  annexation  of, 
by  Sir  H.  Smith  not  recognised 
by  British  Crown,  147 
Orloff,  Prince,  308 
Osborne,    Bernal,   on    the    Irish 
Government,     118  ;     on    the 
Eastern  question,  312  ;  attack 
on  the  War  Office,  378,  411 
Osten-Sacken,  Governor,  416 
Oudinot,  General,  98 
Overstone,  Lord,  see  Loyd,  Jones 
Oxford  Movement — 

Broad  Church  School,  attitude 

towards,  19 
Effects  of,  16-17 
Newman's   secession,  effect  of, 

on  the  movement,  148 
Oxford  University — 
Commission  on,  198 
Derby   elected    Chancellor   of, 

262 

Muller,  Max,  at,  154 
Reform  of  (1854),  351-352 

Pacifico,  Don,  166-167 

Pakington,  Sir  John  (Lord  Hamp- 
ton), Colonial  Secretary,  247 ; 
passes  New  Zealand  Consti- 
tution Bill,  253 ;  on  Fisheries 
dispute,  254 ;  on  Peel,  2G4  ; 
moves  rejection  of  Clergy  Re- 
serves Bill,  284,  286 

Palmer,  Roundell  (Earl  of  Sel- 
borne),  on  Deceased  Wife's 
Sister  Bill,  134 ;  opposes 
Oxford  Commission,  198  ;  on 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  209 ; 
opposes  continuance  of 
Crimean  War,  398 

Palmerstou,  Viscount — 

Career — Lord  Grey's  attitude 
towards,  in  1845, 23  ;  in  1846, 
28 ;  Prince  Albert's  attitude 
towards,  69 ;  on  national 
defences,  88;  attitude  towards 
French  Republic,  101  ;  diplo- 
matic embroilment  with  Spain, 
104-106 ;  supplies  arms  to 
Sicilian  insurgents,  107  ;  on 
English  policy  in  Ireland, 
130  ;  on  Cobden's  arbitration 
proposal,  135  ;  Pacifico  ques- 
tion, 168-179;  the  great 


INDEX 


441 


Palmerston,  Viscount — continued 
speech,  173-175  ;  the  Queen's 
Memorandum,  226-229,  240 ; 
interview  with  Prince  Albert, 
228 ;  on  the  assault  upon 
Marshal  Haynati,  230;  action 
on  Gladstone's  Neapolitan 
Letter,  231  ;  proposed  recep- 
tion of  Kossuth,  232-233; 
receives  Radical  deputation, 
233  ;  approves  the  coup  d'etat, 
234-235  ;  dismissed  from  the 
Foreign  Office,  235  ;  attitude 
towards  Lord  Granville,  237  ; 
defeats  Russell  on  the  Militia 
Bill,  242-243  ;  refuses  to  join 
Derby  (1852),  244,  249;  re- 
elected  for  Tiverton,  260 ; 
Memorandum  for  Count 
Aquila,  260  note  2 ;  refuses 
to  serve  under  Russell,  263  ; 
amendment  on  Villiers'  Free 
Trade  motion,  264  ;  relations 
with  Lord  Aberdeen,  279 ; 
work  as  Home  Secretary,  289, 
296-298 ;  war  policy  of,  on 
Eastern  question,  311,  314, 
319,  333  ;  speech  on  Turkey's 
progressive  improvement, 
317  ;  resigns,  326  ;  returns, 
327  ;  denies  responsibility  for 
Press  attacks  on  Prince  Albert, 
330 ;  speech  at  Reform  Club 
dinner  on  the  eve  of  war,  336- 
337  and  note  ',  on  the  French 
alliance,  350  ;  supersession 
of  Newcastle  by,  desired  by 
Russell,  373,  377  note; 
refuses  office  under  Derby 
(1855),  381  ;  Prime  Minister, 
383  ;  opposes  appointment  of 
Roebuck  Committee,  386 ; 
assents,  387  ;  offers  Russell 
Colonial  Secretaryship,  387 ; 
improvements  effected  by,  at 
the  seat  of  war,  389  ;  tribute 
to  Hume,  390  ;  attitude  to- 
wards Vienna  Conference, 
392,  396  ;  persuades  Russell 
to  withdraw  his  resignation, 
397  ;  defends  the  war,  399 ; 
discreditable  attitude  towards 
Raglan,  408  ;  Prince  Albert's 
speech  in  support  of,  409 


Palmerston,  Viscount — continued 
Colleagues,  neglect  of,  48,  163, 

169-170,  226 

Cosmopolitanism  of,  27, 164,236 
Court,  relations  with,  10",  163, 

170,  226-229,  326  note 
Estimate  of,  26-28 
Foreign  attitude  towards,  163- 

164 

Foreign  influence  of,  299 
Foreign  policy  of,  26-27,  45  et 
*e?r,    89,    163-164,    174-175, 
180,  236-237 

Handwriting  of,  164,  244 
Humanitarianism  of,  289-290 
Hungarian  sympathies  of,  100 
Italian     sympathies      of,     94, 

99-100,  107,  384,  385 
Louis  Philippe,  hostility  to,  91, 

101 

Popularity  of,  164 
Prince  Albert  contrasted  with,  68 
Russia, hostility  to,  97,  299,306, 

340 
Otherwise  mentioned,  253,  257, 

277,  377,  383 

Panmure,  Lord,  appointed  Secre- 
tary  for  War,  ,S84 ;    attacks 
on  Raglan,  407-408 
Papal  aggression  controversy,  196- 

200,  202-204,  206-210 
Parke,  Baron  (Lord  Wensleydale), 

361,  192 

Parker,  Charles,  quoted,  179 
,  Admiral  Sir  William,  inter- 
feres at    Messina,    98,    108 ; 
blockades   the    Piraeus,   166, 
168-169 
Parliament — 

Buildings,  style  of,  155-166 
Commons — 

Irish  party  in — 

Balance     of    power    with 

(1852),  259,  272-273 
"  Pope's  Brass  Band,  the," 

278 
Tenant  Right  Bill  (1852), 

272-273 

Lords'  infringement  of  privi- 
lege of  (1849),  131 
Master  of  the  Rolls,  Bill  to 

exclude,  288 

New  buildings  first  used  by, 
72  note 


442   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Parliament — continued 
Commons — continued 

Parties,  strength  of  (1847),  76 
Group  system  in,  158 
Lords — 

Bishops,  see  under  Churches, 

Anglican 
Commons'  privilege  infringed 

by  (1849),  131 
Constitutional     anarchy     of, 

286  and  note 1 

Impotence  of,  to  turn  out  a 

Government,  171,  245,  287 

Jewish    disabilities,    attitude 

towards,  119, 133,  212,  287 

New  buildings  first  used  by, 

72  note 

Proxies,  system  of,  262  note l 

Oaths,  proposed  reform  of,  132 

Pauperism,  percentage  of,  in  1842, 

7 

Paxton,  Sir  Joseph,  207  and  note 
Paymaster  Generalship,  30-31 
Pease,  Mr.,  7,  328  note 
Peel,  General,  413 

,  Frederick,  career  of,  133 ; 

opposes  Ecclesiastical  Titles 
Bill,  200  ;  in  office  under 
Russell,  245 ;  Clergy  Reserves 
Bill  of,  283-286 

,  Sir  Robert — 

Careet —  taxation  rearranged 
by,  2 ;  overthrow  of,  3  ; 
address  from  Elbing,  3-4 ; 
retirement  of,  4  ;  Carlyle's 
attitude  towards,  15  ;  Irish 
Coercion  Bill,  22,  40,  80 ; 
protects  Whig  Government, 
25  ;  Bentinck's  hostility  to, 
34  ;  attitude  towards  sugar 
duties,  36,  121 ;  dislike  of 
Disraeli,  38  ;  supports  in- 
tervention in  Portugal,  53 ; 
annoyance  at  relations 
between  Russell  and  Ben- 
tiuck,  63  ;  on  Roman 
Catholic  emancipation,  66 
note ;  advice  on  the  Cam- 
bridge candidature  of 
Prince  Albert,  70  ;  opposes 
Factory  Bill,  73  ;  urges  in- 
clusion of  Roman  Catholic 
schools  in  education  grant, 
74  ;  on  Russell's  Irish  Bill, 


Peel,  Sir  Robert — continued 

81  ;  on  the  French  revolu- 
tion of  1848,  92;  on  the 
income  tax,  93 ;  on  Pal- 
merston's  Spanish  embroil- 
ment, 106  ;  supports  sus- 
pension of  Habeas  Corpus 
Act  in  Ireland,  118 ;  on 
Russell's  sugar  proposals, 
121  ;  speech  of,  in  defence 
of  his  policy,  129  ;  Memor- 
andum on  Irish  land  tenure, 
132  ;  views  on  Colonial 
loyalty,  143  ;  on  Ceylon 
Committee,  144  note ;  on 
Canadian  rebels  question, 
145  ;  on  abolition  of  Ix>rd- 
Lieutenancy  of  Ireland, 
160 ;  on  resuming  office. 
177  ;  speech  in  the  Pacifico 
debate,  177-178;  death  of, 
179,  228 ;  tributes  to,  180, 
264-265 

Achievements  of,  1 
Budgets    introduced    by,   88 

note 
Estimate    of,    180  ;     foreign 

estimate  of,  3 
Foreign  policy  of,  2 
Income  tax  revived  by,  291 
Popularity  of,  2-3 
Otherwise  mentioned,  6,  50, 
61,    64,    65,   69,    78,    120, 
122,    158,    185,    207,   216, 
281,  290 

,  Sir  Robert  (the  younger),  208 

Peelites — 

Coalition  Government,  propor- 
tion in,  277 

Russell's  overtures  to,  25,  86 
Stanley's  censure  of,  203 ;   his 
attitude  towards,  in  1852,  244 
Pelissier,  General  (Due  de  Mala- 
koff),      succeeds     Canrobert, 
400;  attack  on  the  Malakoff 
and    Redan,  401-403 ;   recall 
of,  proposed,  409 ;  attack  on 
the    Malakoff,   418-419 ;   op- 
poses Napoleon,  420-421 
Pemberton,  Mr.,  59 
Penal  servitude,  289 
Philpotts,  Bishop  of  Exeter,  op- 
poses    diplomatic     relations 
with    Rome,    102  ;    Gorham 


INDEX 


443 


Philpotts,  Bishop  of  Exeter — con- 
tinued- 
case,     190-191,     193-195; 
Molesworth's  view  of,  285 
Piedmont,    contingent    from,    in 

Crimean  War,  385,  417 
Pius  IX. ,  Pope,  alleged  Liberalism 
of,  55  ;  Palmerston's  attitude 
towards,  56  ;  declares  war 
against  Austria,  97  ;  at  Gaeta, 
97-98,  108  ;  Lansdowne's  Bill 
for  authorisation  of  diploma- 
tic relations  with,  102-103  ; 
"  papal  aggression  "  contro- 
versy, 196  et  seq. 
Poerio,  231 

Ponsonby,  Lord,  100-101 
Portugal,  British  interference  in 

(1846),  51-53 
Powis,  Earl  of,  70 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood,  155 
Press  (see  also  names  of  journals) — 
Indiscretions  of,  405-406 
Prince  Albert  attacked  by,  323, 

330 

Taxation  oppressive  to,  255 
Protection — 

Derby's     pronouncements     re- 
garding, 248-249, 251-252, 263 
Disraeli's  attitude  towards,  249- 

250,  255,  259 
End  of,  265 

Taxation  in  relation  to,  395 
Protectionists — 

Bentinck's  leadership  of,  33 
Disraeli's    leadership    of,    120, 

125  note,  246 
Position   of,    in   1850,  158 ;  in 

1851,  206-207 
Stanley's  criticisms  of,  203 
Sugar  duties,attitude  towards,35 
Prussia  (see  also  Germany) — 
Crimean  War,  policy  regarding, 

341,  348 

Revolution  in  (1848),  96 
Public  Health  Act  (1848),  9,  153 
Punch,  376,  39J  note 

Radetsky,  Marshal,  97 
Radical  party — 

Eastern  question  (1853),  attitude 

towards,  312 

Palmerston's  attitude  towards, 
233 


Radicals,  Wellington's  view  of,  76 
Raglan,  General  Lord,  appointed 
to  command  against  Russia, 
335;  arrives  at  Constantinople. 
345  ;  Varna  Conference,  345  ; 
views  011  invasion  of  the 
Crimea,  349 ;  hampered  by 
St.  Arnaud,  350,  356-357, 
404  ;  by  Canrobert,  357,  360, 
369,  404  ;  views  regarding 
the  fleets,  358  ;  bombardment 
of  Sebastopol,  359 ;  orders 
at  Balaklava  disregarded  by 
Lucan,  362-364 ;  on  the 
charge  of  the  Light  Brigade. 
367 ;  Inkerman,  368-370 ; 
has  Eupatoria  occupied,  391  ; 
views  on  the  attack  on  the 
Redan,  401  ;  makes  the 
attack,  402-403 ;  views  on 
Press  indiscretions,  405-406 ; 
attacked  by  Newcastle,  406- 

407  ;  by  Panmure,  407  5   re- 
fuses responsibility  for  trans- 
port, 412 ;   Roebuck's   refer- 
ence to,  413 ;  death  of,  403, 

408  ;  criticisms  on,  403-404 ; 
defects  of,  373 

Railways — 

Expenditure  on  (1844-49),  6 
Ireland,    in  —  Bentinck's    pro- 
posal, 63 

Labour  provided  by,  8 
Mania  for,  6,  77 

Reaction,  Disraeli's  views  on,  36-37 

Read,  General,  417 

Redan,  attack  on  the,  401-403; 
September  attack,  418,  420 

RedcliiFe,  Lord  Stratford  de,  see 
Stratford 

Reeve,  Mr. ,  122  note 

Reform,  public  indifference  to,  283 

Reform  Bills,  Russell's  (1852), 
241 ;  (1854),  326, 331-332, 344 

Ricardo,  152 

"  Richard  Roe,"  258  note  2 

Ripon,  Marquess  of,  see  Goderich, 
Lord 

Ritualism,  273-274 

Robertson,  Rev.  Frederick,  220 

Roden,  Earl  of,  43,  160,  272 

Roebuck,  Mr.,  on  Canadian  rebels 
question,  145  ;  moves  resolu- 
tion in  support  of  Palmerston's 


444   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Roebuck,  Mr. — continued 

foreign  policy,  173 ;  notice 
of  motion  for  Committee  of 
Inquiry  on  Crimean  War, 
376-377  ;  motion  made,  378  ; 
Conservative  support  of,  381  ; 
appointment  of  Committee 
opposed  by  Palmerston,  386 ; 
agreed  to,  387  ;  made,  388- 
389;  Report  of  the  Com- 
mittee, 411  and  note,  412 ; 
proposes  vote  of  censure  on 
Aberdeen  Government,  412- 
413  and  note  ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 74,  172 

Rogers,  Samuel,  216 

Roman  Catholic  Emancipation, 
65-66  and  note 

Roman  Catholics,  see  under 
Churches 

Rome — 

Diplomatic       relations       with, 
Lansdowne's  Bill  for  author- 
isation of,  102-103 
French  occupation  of  (1849),  98, 
101 

Romilly,  Sir  John  (Lord  Romilly), 
111,  177  note2,  212 

Rose,. Colonel  (Lord  Strathnairn), 
307 

Rossetti,  D.  G.,  155 

Rossi,  Count,  97 

Rothschild,  Baron  Lionel,  election 
of,  76  ;  disability  of,  81,  83  ; 
debate  in  the  Lords  on  posi- 
tion of,  119  ;  takes  the  oaths 
in  his  own  way,  211 

Rouge,  La  Motte,  419 

Royal  Patriotic  Fund,  358 

Ruskin,  John — Seven  Lamps  of 
Architecture,  155 ;  Stones  of 
Venice,  222-223 

Russell,  Lord  John — 

Career — succeeds  Peel,  23,  24  ; 
attitude  of  the  Opposition  to, 
33 ;  sugar  policy  of,  35-36, 
38,  40 ;  strength  of  his 
Government,  38-39 ;  Irish 
policy,  40-41  ;  Irish  relief, 
60-63 ;  supports  Factory  Bill, 
72 ;  education  policy,  74 ; 
penetration  of,  in  Irish  affairs, 
81 ;  on  Jewish  disabilities, 
82 ;  Hampden  appointment, 


Russell,  Lord  John — continued 
84-85 ;  introduces  Budget, 
88 ;  on  national  defences, 
88  ;  income  -  tax  proposals, 
88,  93  note1;  Bill  for  re- 
moval of  Jewish  disabilities, 
119;  proposal  on  sugar  duties 
(1848),  120;  on  Bentinck's 
attack  upon  Lord  Grey,  122  ; 
further  attempt  for  enfran- 
chisement of  Jews,  132 ; 
urges  abolition  of  Irish  Lord- 
Lieutenancy,  160 ;  on  slave- 
trade  question,  166 ;  action 
regarding  the  Pacinco  affair, 
170  -  172,  178  ;  Colonial 
policy,  182,  185-187  ;  Dur- 
ham Letter,  198-199 ;  Ecclesi- 
astical Titles  Bill,  200,  206- 
210 ;  opposes  Locke  King's 
Franchise  motion,  201 ;  de- 
feat of,  201  ;  return  of,  206  ; 
the  Queen's  Memorandum 
to,  on  Palmerston,  226-229, 
240 ;  on  the  assault  upon 
Marshal  Haynau,  230-231  ; 
on  Kossuth's  visit,  232 ;  dis- 
misses Palmerston,  235-236 ; 
Reform  Bill  (1852),  241  ; 
Militia  Bill,  241-242 ;  defeat 
by  Palmerston,  243  ;  defends 
Clarendon,  250 ;  opposes 
Derby's  Militia  Bill,  252; 
measure  against  corrupt 
practices,  259  ;  tribute  to 
Wellington,  261 ;  discontent 
of  followers,  262-263,  276, 
353  ;  vacillation,  263  ;  agrees 
to  lead  Commons  as  Foreign 
Secretary,  277 ;  makes  diffi- 
culties, 279 ;  retains  leader- 
ship without  office,  286-287 ; 
fourth  Jew  Bill,  287 ;  South 
African  policy,  289 ;  Educa- 
tion Bill,  290  ;  beginnings  of 
trouble  in  the  East,  299,  301  ; 
sends  Lord  Stratford  back  to 
Constantinople,  305  ;  recep- 
tion of  Russian  overtures, 
305-306 ;  conduct  towards 
Aberdeen,  311,  316,  319,  327, 
347  ;  on  the  Vienna  Note, 
318, 342  ;  Reform  Bill  (1854), 
326,  331-332,  344;  creation 


INDEX 


445 


Russell,  Lord  John — continued 
of  Secretaryship  of  State  for 
War  due  to,  346 ;  President 
of  the  Council,  347 ;  nfth 
Jew  Bill,  proposing  simple 
oath  of  allegiance,  351  ;  re- 
lations with  followers  and 
chief,  353 ;  measure  for 
purifying  elections,  353 ; 
again  threatens  resignation, 
373  ;  introduces  Foreign  En- 
listment Bill,  375  ;  resigns  on 
Roebuck's  notice  of  motion, 
376-377;  fails  to  form  a 
Government,  382-383 ;  pleni- 
potentiary at  Vienna,  386, 
396-397 ;  accepts  Colonial 
Secretaryship,  387 ;  speech 
on  Black  Sea  preponderance 
question,  397 ;  resigns,  but 
is  persuaded  to  remain,  397  ; 
consequent  embarrassment, 
410 ;  resigns,  411  ;  takes 
responsibility  for  doings  of 
Aberdeen  Government,  413 

Abilities  of,  24 

Court,  attitude  towards,  24 

Erastianism  of,  84,  198 

Estimate    of,    61  ;    Aberdeen's 
estimate,  280,  311 

Finality  doctrine  of,  11 3, 158, 241 

Industry  of,  59 

Italian  sympathies  of,  107,  385 

Literary  taste  of,  218 

Poverty  of,  119,  287 

Otherwise   mentioned,  46,   50, 
58,  65,  69,  76,  86,  105,  150, 
163,  254,  264,  265,  282,  283, 
326  note,  330,  332,  349 
Russell,  Sir   William,   letters  of, 
to  the  Times  on  the  Crimean 
War,  370,  372,  405 
Russia  (see  also  Nicholas) — 

Black   Sea,   preponderance  in, 
386,  392,  395-397 

Cracow  extinction  attributed  to, 
49 

Crimean  War,  see  that  title 

Hungarian    Revolution,    inter- 
ference in,  96-97,  310 

Louis   Napoleon,   despatch    re- 
garding, 238 

Pacifico  question,  action  regard- 
ing, 169 


Russia — continued 

Palmerston's    hostility   to,    97, 

299,  306,  340 
Position  of,  in  1846,  27 
Stratford's    hostility    to,     306, 

308,  325,  340 
Turkey- 
Christians  in,  claims  regard- 
ing, 303, 305  note,  318, 341  ; 
acknowledged   by  Russell, 
306  ;  guarantee   demanded 
from    Turkey,    309;     the 
Vienna  Note,  315-318, 342  ; 
Vienna  Protocol,  326-327, 
331 
War  with,  in  1854  (see  also 

Crimean  War) — 
Declaration  of,  319-320 
Origin  of,  300,  302 
Sinope,  324-325 

Sadleir,  John,  272,  278 

St.  Arnaud  (Jacques  Le  Roy), 
assists  at  the  coup  d'etat,  234  ; 
appointed  to  command  against 
Russia,  336,  350 ;  arrives  at 
Constantinople,  345 ;  Varna 
Conference,  345 ;  Raglan 
hampered  by,  350,  356-357, 
404 ;  at  the  Alma,  354 ;  letter 
on  the  Alma,  356  note 1 ', 
death  of,  357 

St.  Germans,  Earl  of,  282,  388 

St.  Leonards,  Lord,  247,  258- 
259,  282 

Salles,  General  de,  419 

Salomons,  Alderman,  212 

Sand  River  Convention,  271-272 

Sandon,  Viscount,  36 

Scarlett,  General  Sir  James,  361- 
362 

Schleswig-Holstein  affair — 

Palmerston's  attitude  towards, 

226,  323 

Prince  Albert's  question  regard- 
ing, 228 

Royal  speech  regarding,  129 
Settlement  of,  269 

Science,  popularity  of,  in  1851,225 

Scotland,  distress  in,  during  1847, 
71 

Sebastopol,  siege  of,  begun,  357  ; 
naval  attack,  359  ;  bombard- 
ment, 360 ;  straits  of  the 


446   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Sebastopol — contin  ued 

garrison,  416  ;  great  bom- 
bardment, 418-411);  reduction 
of  the  place,  419-420 

Sebastopol  Committee,  see  Roe- 
buck 

Seeley,  Sir  John,  19,  137 

Serrano.  Marshal,  104 

Servia,  304 

Seymour,  Lady,  103  note  l 

,  Lord,  411  note 

,  Sir  Hamilton,  Czar's  over- 
tures to,  303-304;  Russell's 
despatch  to,  305-306  ;  Claren- 
don's despatches  to,  313,  319  ; 
informed  regarding  Russian 
fleet,  326  ;  leaves  Petersburg, 
330 ;  censured  by  Roebuck 
Committee,  412 

Shaftesbury,  7th  Earl  of  (Lord 
Ashley),  Factory  Act  (1847), 
due  to,  71-72 ;  opposes  re- 
moval of  Jewish  disabilities, 
82,  212 ;  efforts  regarding 
public  asylums,  156  ;  Factory 
Act  Amendment  Bill  of,  161- 
162 ;  abolishes  Sunday  de- 
livery of  letters,  162-163  ;  on 
the  Gorham  judgment,  193 ; 
on  Russia's  religious  intoler- 
ance, 338  ;  estimate  of,  7,  71- 
72 ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
289,  297 

Shee,  Serjeant,  272 

Sheil,  7 

Shipping,  Disraeli's  proposals 
regarding,  267 

Sibthorpe,  Col.,  159 

Sicily,  revolution  in  (1848),  98; 
arms  supplied  to  insurgents 
by  Great  Britain,  107 

Silistria,  siege  of,  348 

Simpson,  General,  appointed  Chief 
of  the  Staff  to  Raglan,  390 ; 
report  by,  408 ;  succeeds  to 
chief  command,  418  ;  attack 
on  the  Redan,  420 ;  retires 
from  the  command,  421  and 
note 1 

,  Sir  James,  156 

Sinope,  battle  of,  324-325 

Slave   trade,    British    squadron's 

opposition  to,  165-166 
Small  Debts  Bill  (1846),  43 


Small  States,  rights  of,  49 

Smith,  Adam,  on  Navigation  Laws, 
127-128 

,  Sir  Harry,  146-147,  214  and 

note 

,    Vernon    (Lord    Lyveden), 

133,  388 

Smyrna,  French  fleet  despatched 
to,  307 

Soap  tax,  293 

Somervilie,  Mrs.,  13 

Sotomayor,  Duke  of,  105 

Spain — 

Palmerston's     diplomatic     em- 
broilment with,  104-106 
Royal   marriages  question,  45- 
47,49 

Spencer,  Herbert — Social  Statics, 
224 

Spirit  duty  (1846),  8  ;  (1847),  77  ; 
(1854),  345  ;  (1855),  395 

Stafford,  Augustus  (Stafford 
O'Brien),  378  and  note,  382 

Stamp  Bill  (1850),  158 

Stanhope,  Earl,  75 

Stanley,  Bishop,  198 

,  Lord,  14th  Earl  of  Derby,  see 

Derby 

,  Lord,  352,  398 

Stephen,  Sir  James,  151  note,  182 

Stockmar,  Baron,  69,  409 

Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  Lord,  at 
Constantinople,  305 ;  hostility 
to  Russia,  306,  308, 325, 340"; 
influence  of,  307,  320,  325, 
341 ;  Clarendon's  instructions 
to,  307-308,  313-314,  325; 
settles  Holy  Places  dispute, 
308  and  note 2 ;  the  Vienna 
Note,  316  note  ;  alleged  desire 
for  peace,  329 ;  Clarendon's 
complaint  against,  396  ;  cen- 
sured by  Roebuck  Committee, 
412 

Strutt,  Mr.  (Lord  Belper),  347 

Stuart,  Lord  Dudley,  241,  316 

Sturge,  Mr. ,  328  note 

Succession  Duty,  293,  295 

Sugar  allowed  in  brewing,  62 
Sugar  duties — Russell's  equalisa- 
tion of,  35-36,  38,  40  ;  Ben- 
tinck  Committee  and  Russell's 
proposals  on,  119-121  ;  in 
1854,  345  ;  in  1855,  395 


INDEX 


447 


Sumner,  Archbishop,  on  abolition 

of  Parliamentary  oaths,  133  ; 

consecrates    Hampden,    148 ; 

on  theGorham  case,  192-193  ; 

on   revival    of   Convocation, 

196  ;  in  "  papal  aggression  " 

controversy,  198 

Sunday  delivery  of  letters,  162-163 
Sunday  Trading  Bill,  416 
Switzerland,  war  of  the   Sonder- 

bund  in,  53-54 

Tasmania,  183,  185,  186 
Taxation — 

Advertisement  duty,  255,  293 

Brick  duty,  158 

Coffee  duty,  201,  395 

Corn  tax,  suspension  of,  in 
1847,  61 

House  tax,  200,  206,  267-268 

Income  tax — 

Exemptions  from,  292 
Gladstone's  proposals  regard- 
ing  (1853),    291-292;    his 
dealings  with (1854), 337, 345 
Hume's  proposal    regarding, 

206 
Ireland,  extension  to,  62,  267, 

292-293 

Lewis's  dealings  with,  394-395 
Nature  of,  291 

Russell's  proposal  regarding, 
88,  92 

"  Knowledge,  taxes  on,"  255 

Malt  duty,  267-268,  345 

Peel's  readjustment  of,  2 

Protection  in  relation  to,  395 

Soap  tax,  293 

Spirit  duty  (1846),  8;  (1847), 
77  ;  (1854),  345  ;  (1855),  395 

Succession  duty,  293,  295 

Sugar  duties,  Russell's  equalisa- 
tion of,  35-36,  38,  40;  Ben- 
tinck  Committee  arid  Russell's 
proposals  on,  119-121  ;  in 
1854,  345  ;  in  1855,  395 

Tea  duties,  in  1846,  8 ;  Disraeli's 
proposals  regarding,  267-268  ; 
Gladstone's  reduction  of,  293; 
Lewis's  dealings  with,  395 

Timber,  foreign,  duty  on,  201 

War,  relation  to,  Gladstone's 
views  on,  345 

Window  tax,  8,  159,  200,  206 


Taylor,  Sir  Henry,  estimate  of 
Lord  Derby  by,  32-33 ;  Ceylon 
Committee  described  by,  144 
note ;  proposed  for  Laureate- 
ship,  218  note 1 

Tea  duty,  see  under  Taxation 

Teesdale,  Major,  422 

Telegraphy,  advance  in  (1851), 
224-225 

Tenniel,  Sir  John,  224 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  pension  of,  11, 
216  ;  In  Memoriam,  11,  216- 
217,  220;  votes  for  county 
franchise,  20 ;  appointed 
Laureate,  216,  218  ;  admirers 
of,  218  note l,  220-221  ;  poem 
on  free  speech,  240  ;  poem  on 
Wellington,  260-261  ;  Maud, 
335  ;  estimate  of,  218 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  estimate  of, 
151  -  152  ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 159,  219 

Thames — 

Embankment,  construction   of, 

415 
Sewage,  protection  from,  298 

Thesiger,  Sir  Frederick  (Lord 
Chelmsford),  209,  211 

Thiers,  fails  to  form  a  Government 
in  1848,  90  ;  electoral  defeat 
of,  94 ;  arrest  of,  234 ;  Dis- 
raeli's plagiarism  of,  261  ; 
cited,  95 

Thirlwall,  Bishop  of  St.  David's, 
on  Grote,  14  ;  on  diplomatic 
relations  with  Rome,  102 ; 
speech  on  Jewish  disabilities, 
119;  on  bishop-made  law,195; 
supports  Ecclesiastical  Titles 
Bill,  210  ;  on  Jewish  disabili- 
ties, 287  ;  estimate  of,  17-19 

Timber,  foreign,  duty  on,  201 

Times — 
Advertisement  duty  as  affecting, 

294 
Crimean  correspondent  of,  370, 

372,  405 

Crimean  Fund,  358 
Crimean  War,  attitude  towards, 
324,    349 ;     reports    fall     of 
Sebastopol  (September  1854), 
356 
Fame  of,  255,  349,  406 

Tocqueville,  Alexis  de,  89-92,  101 


448   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Todleben,  General,  fortifies  Sebas- 

topol,  356  and  note  *,  358-351) ; 

wounded,     416 ;      otherwise 

mentioned,  360, 404,  412, 418 

Torrington,  Lord,  143,  189 

Tractarian  Movement,  see  Oxford 

Movement 
Trade— 

Cobden's  view  of,  312 
Disraeli's  view  of,  62 
Trade  Unions — 
Earliest,  9-10 
Progress  of  (1852),  275 
Transportation  of  convicts,    146- 
147, 181-186 ;  abolition  of,  288 
Treason  Felony  Act(1848),  114-115 
Treaties — 

Anglo-French  (1854),  343 
Clayton-Bulwer,  179 
Kainardji,  303,  313,  318,  340 
London  (1852),  269 
Sand  River  Convention,  271-272 
Vienna,   48-49,  99,    164,    238, 

290-291 

Trevelyan,  Sir  Charles,  Irish  relief 
work  of,  59 ;  on  Civil  Ser- 
vice Commission,  296  and 
note,  410 

Trollope,  Anthony,  296  note 
Truro,  Lord,  177  note2,  199,  282 
Tulloch,  Colonel,  413 
Turgot,  M.,  235 
Turkey- 
Aberdeen's  estimate  of,  321 
Alliance  with,  terms  of,  339 
Christians    in,    Russian    claims 
regarding,     303,     305     note, 
318,  341 ;   acknowledged    by 
Russell,  306  ;    guarantee  de- 
manded by  Russia,  309 ;  the 
Vienna  Note,  315-318,  342; 
Vienna    Protocol,    326-327, 
331 

Crimean  War,  see  that  title 
Hungarian    refugees  protected 

by,  97 
"Independence"  of,  309,  332, 

339,  340,  343,  386 
Irish  distress  assisted  by,  60 
Jerusalem    churches    question, 

300,  302,  308  and  note  2 
Loan  to  (1855),  414 
Partition      of,      discussed      by 
Nicholas,  303-304 


Turkey — continued 

Russia,  war  with,  in   1854  {nee 

also  Crimean  War) — 
Declaration  of,  310-320 
Origin  of,  300-302 
Sinope,  324-325 
Russian  sympathies  of  majority 

in,  334 

Turner,  Sir  George,  191  and  note l 
,  J.  M.  W.,  222 

Ullathorne,  Dr.,  197 

United  States- 
Arbitration   Treaty  with,  sug- 
gested by  Palmerston,  136 
Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty,  179 
Constitution  of,  189 
Emigration  to,  9,  64-65 
Fisheries  dispute  with  Canada 

(1852),  254 
Oregon  question,  2 
Peel's  attitude  towards,  2 
Position  of,  in  1846,  27 

Usury  Laws,  repeal  of,  353 

Utilitarian  School,  13 

Vaillant,  Marshal,  393,  396,  409 

Van  Diemen's  l^and,  see  Tasmania 

Vancouver's  Island,  cession  of,  to 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  145 

Vanity  Fair,  151 

Varna — 

Cholera  at,  354  vote 
Conference  at  (May  19),  345 

Vere,  Aubrey  de,  193 

Victor  Emmanuel  I.,  King,  ac- 
cession of,  98 ;  joins  Anglo- 
French  alliance  (1855),  384- 
385 

Victoria,  Queen,  Peelite  sym- 
pathies of,  23  ;  friendship  for 
Portuguese  queen,  51  ;  un- 
popularity of,  in  1847,  67  ; 
reliance  on  Prince  Albert's 
judgment,  68 ;  reception  of 
Louis  Philippe,  91 ;  attitude 
towards  Palmerston,  107, 163, 
170,  226-229  ;  grants  Russell 
Pembroke  Lodge,  119  note  ; 
visit  to  Ireland  (1849),  132 
and  note  1 ;  opens  the  Great 
Exhibition,  207  ;  Tennyson's 
poem  to  (1851),  218  ;  last  per- 
sonal prorogation,  353 ;  sends 


449 


Victoria,  Queen — continued 

for  Derby,  380  ;  for  Russell, 
382  ;  for  Palmerston,  383  ; 
delighted  with  French  Em- 
peror and  Empress,  392 ; 
visit  to  St.  Cloud,  418  ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  280,  286-287 

Vienna  Conference  (1854),  386- 
386,391-392,395-396;  failure 
of,  395,  398 

Note,  315-318,  342 

Protocol,  326-327,  331 

,  Treaty  of,  48-49,  99,  164, 

238,  290-291 

Villiers,  Charles,  estimate  of  Peel 
by,  2 ;  motion  on  Corn  Law 
repeal,  263  -  264  ;  on  the 
Eastern  question,  312  ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  121,  179 

,  George,  see  Clarendon 

Walewski,  Count,  Palmerston's 
relations  with,  234-235,  314  ; 
attends  Wellington's  funeral, 
266 ;  succeeds  Drouyn  de 
Lhuys,  396 

Walker,  Sir  Baldwin,  307 
Wallachia,*ee  Danubian  Provinces 
Walpole,   Mr.,   Home  Secretary, 
247  ;  introduces  Militia  Bill, 
252 ;  on  Press  attacks  upon 
Prince    Albert,    330 ;    views 
on  Black  Sea  preponderance 
question,  399 

,  Sir  Spencer,  cited,  80,  93 

note l,  100,  168  note 
War- 
Drift,  332 
Fever,  322,  334 

Loans,  Gladstone's  view  of,  345 
Secretary  at,  office  of,  abolished, 

384 
Secretary    of    State    for,    first 

appointment,  346 
Unpreparedness  for,  374 
Webster,  Daniel,  254 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  Peel  sup- 
ported   by,    5 ;      duel    with 
Lord  Winchilsea,  6 ;  grudge 
against  Peel,  31  ;  on  flogging 
in    the    army,    43 ;    on    the 
Spanish  marriages,  49 ;  sup- 
ports intervention  in  Portu- 
gal, 53  ;  on  the  British  army, 
VOL.  I 


Wellington,  Duke  of— continued 
75  ;  view  of  Radicalism,  76  ; 
letterto  Burgoyne  on  national 
defences,  87-89,  242;  pre- 
cautions against  Chartists, 
111  ;  on  proposed  abolition 
of  Irish  Lord  -  Lieutenancy, 
160  ;  on  battle  of  Navarino, 
166,  324;  on  recall  of  Sir 
Harry  Smith,  214  note  ;  the 
"Who?  Who?"  Government, 
246  note1  ;  on  the  Birkenhead 
catastrophe,  258 ;  death  of, 
260;  funeral  of,  260,  266; 
tributes  to,  260-261 ;  estimate 
of,  31,  261-262;  otherwise 
mentioned,  15,  26,  102,  127, 
140,  206,  338 
Wensleydale,  Lord  (Baron  Parke), 

161,  192 

West  Indies,  sugar  supply  from,  36 
Westmorland,  Eurl  of,  343,  386 
Whately,  Archbishop,  133,  287 
Whewell,  Dr.,  69-70 
Whig,  disuse  of  term,  388 
Whigs- 
Coalition    Cabinet,    proportion 

in,  277 

Decline  of,  in  Court  favour,  23 
Last  Government  of,  243 
Peel's  attitude  towards,  in  1846, 

25 

Whish,  General,  138 
"  Who  ?  Who? "  Government, 246 

note 1 

Wilberforce,  Bishop  of  Oxford,  on 
Jewish  disabilities,  119 ;  on 
Colonial  government,  187- 
188 ;  on  the  Gorham  judg- 
ment, 193 ;  on  revival  of 
Convocation,  195  ;  on  Eccle- 
siastical Titles  Bill,  210  ;  atti- 
tude towards  Aberdeen,  281- 
282  ;  Derby's  retort  to,  in 
debate  on  Clergy  Reserves 
Bill,  286  and  note  2 ;  argues  for 
peace,  398  ;  estimate  of,  39-40 
Williams,  Sir  Fenwick,  422-423 

— ,  Monier,  154 
Winchilsea,  Earl  of,  6 
Windham,  General,  420-421 
Window  tax,  8,  159,  200,  206 
Wiseman,  Cardinal,  196-197,  199, 
200 

2G 


450   HISTORY  OF  MODERN  ENGLAND 


Witnesses,  admissiou  as,  of  parties 
to  civil  suits,  213 

Wodehouse,  Lord  (Earl  of  Kim- 
berley),  286  note 2 

Wolseley,  Garnet  (Viscount  Wol- 
seley), 401  note2 

Wood,  Sir  Charles  (Viscount 
Halifax),  Irish  distress  de- 
scribed by,  42  ;  applies  for 
loan  to  Irish  railways,  64 ; 
Irish  Budget  of,  64 ;  supports 
Factory  Bill,  72  ;  authorises 
violation  of  Bank  Charter 
Act,  78 ;  proposes  committees 
on  the  Estimates,  89 ;  aban- 
dons income  tax  increase,  93; 
his  financial  policy,  128-129  ; 
proposal  regarding  grants  to 
Irish  Unions,  131  ;  Budget 
of  1850,  158 ;  Budget  of 
1851,  200,  206;  speech  on 
Louis  Napoleon,  283-284; 


Wood,  Sir  Charles — continued 
India  Bill  of,  287-288;  in- 
competence of,  at  the  Trea- 
sury, 291  ;  estimate  of,  29, 
61,  92  ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
59,  79,  243,  268,  277,  388 

Wood,  Page  (Lord  Hatherley),  on 
Treason  Felony  Act,  114 ;  on 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  208 ; 
on  Rothschild's  taking  of  the 
oath,  211 

Wordsworth,  William,  death  of, 
216;  estimate  of,  11,  216; 
Tennyson's  estimate  of,  219 

Working  classes,  see  Labouring 
classes 

Wortley,  James  Stuart,  133 

Wyse,  Mr.  169 

Yea,  Colonel  Lacy,  355,  402-403 
Yenikale,  capture  of,  400 
Young,  Sir  John  (Lord  Lisgar),282 


END    OF   VOL.    I 


Printed  by  R.  &  R.  CLARK,  LIMITED,  Edinburgh, 


Vols.  I.  and  II.     Now  Ready.      8vo.      8s.  6rf.  net  each. 

A  HISTOKY 

OF 

MODERN   ENGLAND 

In  Five  Volumes. 

BY  HERBERT  PAUL 

CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  II. 

CHAP. 

1.  The  Treaty  of  Paris. 

2.  The  Rule  of  Dalhousie. 

3.  The  Church  and  the  World. 

4.  After  the  War. 

5.  The  Question  of  China. 

6.  Lord  Palmerston's  Dictatorship. 

7.  The  Indian  Mutiny. 

8.  The  Fall  of  Palmerston's  Government. 

9.  The  Tory  Interregnum. 

10.  England,  France,  and  Italy. 

11.  The  End  of  the  Joint  Reign. 

12.  The  Close  of  the  Palmerstonian  Era. 

13.  Science,  Literature,  and  the  Church. 

MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LTD.,  LONDON. 


IMPORTANT   NEW   WORKS 

PCBLISHKD  BY  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LIMITED. 

THE   LIFE   OF    WILLIAM    EWART    GLADSTONE.     By 

JOHN  MORLEY,  M.P.,  O.M.  With  Portraits  and  other  Illustrations. 
Three  vols.  8vo.  42s.  net. 

THE  LIFE  OF  SIR  WILLIAM  HENRY  FLOWER,  F.R.S., 

formerly  Director  of  the  Natural  History  Departments  of  the  British 
Museum.  By  C.  J.  CORNISH.  With  Photogravure  Portraits.  8vo. 

THE  LIFE  OF  LORD  DALHOUSIE.  By  Sir  WILLIAM  LEE- 
WARNER,  K.C.S.l.  With  Portraits,  Jlap,  and  Plans.  Two  vols.  8vo. 

THE  LIFE  OF  GIORDANO  BRUNO.  By  J.  LEWIS  MC!NTYRE, 

M.A.,  D.Sc.,  Anderson  Lecturer  in  the  University  of  Aberdeen.  With 
Photogravure  Plate.  8vo.  10s.  net. 

THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  FISKE.  With  Portraits  and  other 
Illustrations.  Two  vols.  8vo. 

LECTURES  ON  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  AND  ON 

GENERAL  MODERN  HISTORY.  By  the  late  LORD  ACTON,  LL.D., 
D.C.L.,  sometime  Regius  Professor  of  Modern  History  at  Cambridge. 
Two  vols.  8vo. 

OLD  QUEBEC:  THE  FORTRESS  OF  NEW  FRANCE. 
By  Sir  GILBERT  PARKER,  M.P.,  and  CLAUDE  G.  BRYAN.  With  25 
Photogravure  Portraits  ;  97  Full-page  and  other  Illustrations  in  the  text, 
and  5  Maps.  8vo.  15s.  net. 

GREAT  GOLFERS  :  Their  Methods  at  a  Glance.  By  GEORGE 
W.  BELDAM.  With  Notes  by  H.  H.  HILTON,  VARDON,  TAYLOR,  BRAID, 
and  HERD.  Profusely  Illustrated.  8vo. 

ENGLISH  SPORT.  By  various  Writers.  Edited  by  ALFRED 
E.  T.  WATSON.  With  16  Illustrations  in  Colour.  8vo.  12s.  6d.  net. 

SIXTEEN  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  SUBJECTS  FROM 
KIPLING'S  JUNGLE  BOOK.  By  Messrs.  MAURICE  and  EDWARD 
DETMOLD.  These  Illustrations  are  reproduced  in  colour  from  the  Original 
Drawings  in  the  highest  style  of  Lithography.  The  Plates,  which  have 
an  average  measurement  of  10  x  12  inches,  are  mounted  and  inserted  in  a 
Portfolio.  Five  Guineas  net. 

MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LTD.,  LONDON. 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


For 


DA 


P28h 
v.l 


A     000512878     0 


ALlPOWfc, 


4_OC  AMQEJLES,  CALIF* 


